


And No One Understands

by NotMyOrthonym



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Band Fic, F/F, F/M, Humanstuck, M/M, Multi, Songfic, sort of stabdads but not quite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 14:13:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotMyOrthonym/pseuds/NotMyOrthonym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows who Karkat Vantas is. </p><p>Don't they?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. John: Follow the blind chick.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. I haven't even finished the epilogue for my other one, and here I am, avoiding homework again, but writing crap fanfic. Shhhhhhhhhh

Everyone knows who Karkat Vantas is.

No one ever talks to Karkat Vantas.

If you’d ever thought about it, you’d assume that’s just how Karkat likes it. You’d think if anyone ever did try to talk to him, he’d probably punch them in the face. Or kick them in the nuts. Or punch them in the boob. And then he’d probably scream at them for about ten minutes straight. You’d think he was exactly the kind of asshole who’d pull a cheap shot and kick someone when they’re down.

But you don’t really ever think about Karkat Vantas. He exists in the periphery of your world, and you’ve never been very good at looking anywhere but straight ahead. 

You’d probably have never given him a second thought, if it weren’t for Dave’s libido. 

==> Follow the crazy blind chick.

Following a blind chick sounds like your worst idea yet. But you’re not really following her, you’re following Dave … who is following a blind chick, but that’s not the point. 

The point is, it is the first day back from summer vacation, and you are supposed to be hanging out with your three best friends. Instead, you are hanging out with your three best friends plus Dave’s crush of the moment. 

Terezi Pyrope is quite possibly the strangest person you have ever met. And that’s saying something, because your three friends consist of: a psychoanalytic knitting enthusiast who dabbles in the wiccan arts, a prodigy scientist who you suspect is not-so-secretly a furry, and an albino kid who spends half of his time rapping, the other half drawing shitty webcomics, all of his time being ironic, and already has a DJ job on the weekends. 

But Terezi Pyrope takes the cake. You’ve only known her since lunch today, and she’s already licked you twice and bit you once. 

Dave invited her to hang out with you all after class. It’s a tradition in your group to hang out with each other every day after school the first week back. Keeps you from getting too involved in other things too quickly. Not that that’s actually ever happened. You’re all disgustingly co-dependent. It’s not the first time that someone has intruded on this sacred time. You remember once you invited Vriska Serket to hang out during this precious week. She spent ten minutes in your company before deciding it was lame and she was leaving. She didn’t bother to try to get any of you to come with her. Terezi is an outlier, not because she is there, but because she got the group to go where she wants to go. For the first time in years, instead of spending the afternoon of the first day of school at your favorite video arcade, you are being dragged to an unknown location.

You still have no idea how she convinced the group to do it. It’s all a bit of blur, really.

More importantly though, you still have no idea where she’s taking you.

==> Examine surroundings.

You’re only a couple of blocks from the school, in the one part of town with apartment buildings. You don’t know anyone who lives here. It’s not the best part of the neighborhood, to say the least.

You glance over at Jade to see if she knows where you’re headed any better than you do. She raises her eyebrows and shrugs at you. Rose is too busy examining Terezi’s grip on Dave to catch your look. You sigh and resign yourself to having no idea where you are. You really hope you can trust this girl. What if she’s a serial killer?

She’s stopped in front of one of the buildings now. You have no clue how she was able to find her way here. She must have come here a lot, to have memorized the path and know exactly when to turn. 

When she whips out a key, you wonder if she lives here.

You’re not very good at reading people, but having had glasses all your life, you have an idea of what the general styles are, and how much they cost, and those pointy red ones look custom. Not something someone who lives around here could really afford.

You wonder if this is where she takes her victims. You have asthma and you’re pretty sure Rose has never broken a sweat in her life, but Jade plays a bunch of sports and Dave is … well, Dave. There’s a good chance he’s secretly a martial arts master and just never deigned to tell you. As a group, you could probably take down the skinny blind girl. Right?

She leads you up three flights of stairs and down a little hallway. The place doesn’t look half as run down as you thought it would. You’ve never really been here before. You and Jade live in the much more middle class part of town, Rose lives out in the woods in a giant mansion, and Dave’s apartment is in a much nicer building in the next town over. You don’t know why he goes to school here. You assume it’s because he got kicked out of the school in that town. This is the part of town that your Dad always told you to avoid. 

You’re lucky he isn’t expecting you home for hours. You suck at lying to him.

You’ve stopped in front of another door now. The number 22 is painted on it, and it’s got 4 different locks. Terezi unlocks them all fairly quickly, and before you know it you’re being drawn into the strange apartment.

You really hope you make it out alive.

==> Examine apartment.

You’re rushed past a small but clean looking kitchen and living room. The entire place is surprisingly clean. That doesn’t bode well. What if it’s so clean because you can’t leave any trace of blood behind?

There’s a strange noise coming from further in the apartment. It’s muffled music, you think, and it gets louder as you’re guided to yet another door. Before this one opens, Terezi turns and puts a finger to her rather sinister grin. She wants you all to be quiet. You recognize the look on her face. You get a similar one when planning a prank on Dave. Your group all nods their heads with varying levels of enthusiasm and confusion. She slowly opens the door.

==> [S] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwzMuuGOsVI

The sound hits you in a wave, and you don’t know why she bothered telling you to be quiet. No way anyone in this room could’ve heard you walking in. Besides, they all seem pretty into the music they’re playing.

There’s a surprising number of people in the room. Besides the four people actually playing, there’s at least four others just watching. Terezi still has the finger to her lips, and they all try to hide smiles as they nod. Terezi, in an overly exaggerated manner that has most of the audience sniggering a little, sneaks up on the singer, then throws her hands over his eyes. “Guess whooooo?”

“God fucking dammit, Terezi, I am in the middle of a song!” You know that voices from somewhere. Where do you know that voice from?

“You’re always in the middle of a song.” She drops her hands from his eyes, but remains pressed up against his back. They look pretty buddy-buddy with each other. You glance over at Dave, but can’t tell how he’s taking it. You’re not Rose, you’re not so good at reading past those shades. 

“We’ve talked about this, Terezi! We have had multiple conversations about your tendency to storm into the middle of the few rehearsals I actually manage to schedule with these assholes and disrupt everything! It’s annoying as hell and you know how I feel about it and yet, here you are! Doing it right the fuck again! I know you can’t see my lips moving, but you damn well should be able to hear me!” The singer manages to squirm out of her hold, and turns around to face her, and in doing so spots the four of you. Karkat Vantas looks just as surprised to see you as you are to see him. “No. No fucking way. One day, Terezi. One fucking day at my shitstain of a school, and you’re already dragging these assholes around! I would be shocked, but you know what? I’m actually not. I should have seen this coming. I should have just known that this would be the kind of shit you would pull, the second you got within ten feet of my school. Inevitably, you would end up hanging out with these people. No shit, Vantas, no fucking shit. In fact, the only thing I don’t get, is why the fuck you brought them here!?” 

“Awww, Karkles, you don’t approve of my new friends? But I thought you’d get along so well!” Her crocodile grin is back and it is making you very uncomfortable. You don’t know why Karkat seems to dislike you all so much, but given what you know of him, you’re not really surprised at the venom in his tone. It’s still a little strange to have someone you barely know directing so much hatred towards you though. You’re a pretty nice guy, and you don’t think anyone really has any reason to hate you. But Karkat Vantas hates everyone, you’re pretty sure. 

“Oh go fuck yourself with a dragon figurine Terezi.” Karkat sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Just, just stop, okay. Not fucking now. I’m done with you now. You and your new friends,” he sneers friends like it personally insulted him, “should just sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up so that I can try to at least salvage some of this rehearsal. Speaking of which, why the fuck did you guys stop playing? I would’ve caught up!”

Terezi latches onto Dave and drags him down to sit next to her only about a foot away from Karkat’s microphone. You, Rose, and Jade settle further back, away from the other audience members, who don’t seem at all surprised by this particular turn of events, though at least one of them is curiously eyeing you and your friends. 

“We finished the song, KK.” That’s a surprisingly strong lisp coming out of the bass player. You wonder if he naturally has that or if it’s an affectation. 

“You were a little busy arguing with Terezi to notice,” the guitar player leans against a piano pushed up against the wall, waggling her eyebrows at Karkat. Karkat, you note, blushes like a girl.

“Well then let’s just move the fuck on, shall we?” The guitar player just giggles as Karkat glares at her, face still flushed. 

“Ooooo, play a song for me!” Terezi is, you swear to god, wiggling.

“No.”

“Kaaarrrkat!”

“No.”

“Karkles!”

“No!”

“Karkaaaaaaattt!”

“No fucking way!”

“Kaaaaaaaaar-“

“Not in a million years!”

“kaaaaaaaatttt~”

“Not if my life depended on it!”

“Kaaaarrrrkkkkkllleeees-“

“Not if the fate of the planet, of all life in the fucking universe depended on it!”

“Karkat Vantas!”

“FINE, if it shuts you the fuck up!”

“I always win with that,” she says directly into Dave’s ear. You wonder if it’s possible for Terezi to grin in a way that isn’t shiteating.

Dave’s poker face is still firmly in place, but you get the sense from the set of his shoulders that he’s not overly enthused about the banter between Karkat and Terezi. You’d feel sympathy, but he’s only known her for a day, and you could be at the arcade right now, but instead you’re here.

You turn your attention back to the band as the guitarist starts to play.

==> [S] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCHahWMma0s

Karkat’s still just kind of swinging his head back and forth, but Terezi has started cackling. You guess she knows this song. He gets more and more into it, starting to move the rest of his body as well. 

You’re sort of impressed with how he can move his hips, you don’t think you’re that flexible, when the lyrics start up. He’s actually a pretty good singer, to be honest.

 _“So what if the sex was great-“_ You’re still looking at his hips, when he practically humps the microphone and wow is your face warm. You sort of want to glance over at Dave to see how he’s taking this, but you also kind of can’t look away from Karkat’s hips and jeez, isn’t that strange? This is a little awkward! 

Terezi just keeps cackling at him.

You wonder why, because it’s not a nice song. It’s not a kind song at all. 

_”And then she taught me how to cuss, that bitch! It’s over!”_ If someone sang something like this to you, you would not be smiling like Terezi is. You’d be pretty angry, no matter who it was. Especially if you had actually dated before. 

But no one in the room looks upset, expect Karkat, who looks like he means every word. But literally everyone else, even his fellow bandmates, is just smiling and laughing. The guitarist is even still waggling her eyebrows at the bassist. So you guess maybe it’s a joke? Still seems pretty weird to you.

To be honest, the idea of _Karkat Vantas_ even having a band, or this many friends, seems a bit strange to you. He doesn’t talk to anyone, everyone knows that. He hisses at people who try to hang out with him. You’re not joking, you’ve literally heard that he hisses. He’s surly and broody and violent and almost constantly has detention for foul language. He’s –

 _”Whhhhyyy? Why do you always kick me when I’m hiiiiighhh! Knock me down till we see eye to eeyyyeee!”_ He’s dancing like he doesn’t care, wriggling his hips and raising his arms and shaking his head, and his bandmates are joining him, the drummer nodding his head to the beat, the guitarist doing that hip movement that girls do, the bassist sort of tapping his feet and jumping a little to the beat. And Terezi is pulling faces at him, as he glares and spits the lyrics at her, like she doesn’t care at all that he’s being really disrespectful! 

It’s weird. It’s not how you pictured Karkat’s life. Not that you’d ever actively pictured Karkat’s life, but, like, you just kind of always expected him to be … alone. And that sounds terrible, but it’s just that’s how he always was when you saw him, so you kind of just thought that was just how he _always was_.

As the song finishes, Terezi stands up and loops a finger into one of Karkat’s belt loops. “Karkat, it is just heartbreaking that you’re still pining over me.”

“Yes, Terezi, that is exactly what that song meant. Great job at reading the situation, your ace interpersonal skills have assessed and gained an accurate picture of what is going on right fucking now. You have sniffed out the truth, you completely grasp everything that is going on here, star investigator that you are.” The sarcasm is almost physically dripping from his words. You swear you see a little puddle of it on the floor.

“Nothing ever gets past me, Karkles, you know that.”

“KK, it’s pretty clear we’re not going to get anything productive done here, and you did promise you would feed us.”

“You want to quit already, Captor!? Your work ethic is utter and complete shit, we’ve only been going for like half an hour you weak-willed piece of shit.”

“Karkat, we’ve been practicing for _an hour_ and a half, not half an hour. And I’m starving.” The guitarist is already packing up her equipment.

“You, uh, did promise food.” The drummer looks pretty fidgety. One of the audience members comes to stand by his side, tall and muscular and really kinda scary looking.

“Of course I promised food! It’s the only way I can make you assholes show up nowadays!”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you did purromise, Karkitty,” says the smallest member of the audience as she goes to join the drummer and the scary dude. You hold back a snort at the nickname. You thought Karkles was bad, but _Karkitty?_

“Fine, whatever!” Karkat turns sharply to look at you and your friends. “Can you morons eat mac and cheese or is there some fucking problem with that? Because that is what I’m making, and if there’s a fucking problem with it you better damn well find somewhere else to stuff your faces, because I am not changing my plans because Terezi decided she was allowed to just invite whoever the fuck she wanted into my apartment without my permission.”

“Karkat, when you gave me a key-“

“No, shut the fuck up, this is not the conversation we’re having right now. Just tell me if any of you have, like, a deathly allergy to cheese or something equally stupid that I should know about, okay?”

“I’m allergic to peanuts,” you offer up.

Karkat shoots you a scathing look. “What the fuck does that have to do with mac and cheese, you dumbass?”

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t know how you make mac and cheese.” 

“It’s just mac and cheese! What the fuck kind of weird ass mac and cheese have you been making!?” You hadn’t meant to rile Karkat up like this, but it’s kind of fun to see him almost flabbergasted at just a simple thing. 

“Deep breaths, KK.” The bassist comes over and puts a hand on Karkat’s shoulder. 

“Shut the fuck up, Sollux!”

The guitarist pokes her head in through the door. “Karkat, can you hurry up? Like I said, I’m starving.” You wonder when everyone else left the room. You should probably pay more attention to this kind of thing. 

Karkat just snarls and storms out. Terezi and the bassist – you think Karkat called him Sollux – follow. 

“Well,” you turn to look at Rose, “this is certainly interesting.”

“Yeah, who knew Vantas wasn’t forever alone, spending every day and night by himself, curled in a ball of aggression and self-loathing.” You’re getting the feeling Dave doesn’t really like Karkat.

“He’s kind of a jerk! I don’t really get why they seem to like him.” Jade is unimpressed.

“Yeah, like, he was pretty insulting to Terezi. I mean, I thought so anyway.’

“Well, we have just met them all, perhaps we should hold back our judgments on their group dynamics until after we have gotten to know them better. Or at least perhaps until we have learned their names.” You wince. Yeah, Rose is right.

“You, Lalonde, holding back from judging people? That’s just not natural. What’s your game?” 

“You don’t find their interactions … interesting, Dave? Well, I know John will back me up on this. He seemed particularly _interested_ during Karkat’s song.” Rose shoots you a knowing look that makes you flush from head to toe, and you don’t even know why.

“W-well, I mean, it’s just kind weird to see Karkat with, you know, people. I mean, he’s just always alone at school, you know?” You don’t even know why you’re stuttering! Geez, Rose’s looks are just so disconcerting! You’d think you’d be used to it by now, but whenever she looks like this, you just get so flustered. She’s looking at you like you’ve just given her something to write down in her psychoanalysis journal, which you think is kind of creepy to have, but you don’t like to get into it with her. That road leads nowhere good. 

The guy you’re pretty sure is named Sollux pokes his head into the room. “KK wants to know if you’re eating with us so he can plan out how much food to make.” 

“Uh, are we?” You glance around at your friends. 

“Look, KK’s a little shit, but his mac and cheese is the best thing ever, so it totally makes up for having to put up with him.” 

Your whole group just kind of shrugs. “Well, why not,” Rose says as she walks out the door and back toward the kitchen. You, Jade, and Dave follow quickly behind.

Oh well, what’s the harm in staying to eat some mac and cheese?


	2. Rose: Contemplate Karkat Vantas

He’s in your psychology class. He’s in your psychology class, and the teacher treats him like a bomb about to go off. You don’t know if he has a history with this teacher, but it’s only been one day, and the teacher treats him like a bomb.

Your friends are treating him a bit like that as well. They don’t mean to, you think. He demands it, you suppose. Volcano is the word that comes to mind when dealing with Karkat Vantas. Active volcano, usually. Smoking and spitting, explosion imminent. And that is how most people treat him. Like an imminent threat, like something about to explode. They prep for damage control even before the explosion’s begun. 

Even John, kind-hearted, everybody’s-friend, how-could-you-dislike-him John is apprehensive around Karkat Vantas. He gets that look on his face, the one he gets when you’re about to break out your journal, or Dave’s about to launch into a rap, and he’s at once uncomfortable and desperately looking for an escape.

Which is odd, because this is one of the few times that you’d describe Karkat as dormant. Not that you’ve seen much of him yet, you’ve barely been here five minutes. Not to mention you’d been distracted. There was Terezi and Dave to watch, not to mention observing not only the others in the room, but your friends’ reactions to them as well. 

But it wasn’t hard to notice the difference in Karkat. It was in the set of his shoulder, the tense slouch relaxed slightly into a straighter posture. It was in the added confidence in his voice. He still yelled and shouted, but it was … different. Calmer, if that makes any sense. More comfortable certainly.

It isn’t that you’ve paid a lot of attention to Karkat in the past, not exactly. You haven’t watched him from afar, fascinated by his tsundere mystique or anything. It’s just that you make it a point to notice things around you. All kinds of things. You could probably tell someone just as much about Vriska Serket as you could tell them about Karkat Vantas. You just like paying attention. You like looking at the big picture and knowing what’s going on. You enjoy understanding. 

And you think the real reason you want to stay is because, before today, you _hadn’t_ given Karkat Vantas much thought. You’d never had a class with him before, never had any reason to give him special attention, merely noted down his characteristics like you did for everyone. You had accepted him as an active volcano, ready to explode at any given moment, and not give it much more thought than that. After all, it didn’t affect you.

And then, on the first day of class, _the teacher_ treated him like he was bracing for an explosion. Not another student. Not another dumb teenager. The _psychology_ teacher.   
It was the first time you ever really wondered what a day in the life of Karkat Vantas was really like. And here, the very same day, you had an opportunity to find out thrust into your lap. Why not take advantage of it?

==> Lead the group to the kitchen

You set off swiftly down the hallway, heading back to the kitchen. John and Jade rush to keep up with you, while Dave hangs behind, dragging his feet. Normally you’d be more concerned with his burgeoning romance, but you’ve got a more interesting subject today and he’s being a bit more of a prick than usual. If Terezi could see the usual needy interactions between him and John, you’re sure she wouldn’t be overly happy either. No one from your group has any right to judge others for being _attached_ , to say the least.

So you resolve to pay him no mind as you turn into the kitchen. Karkat is banging around, grabbing ingredients and pots and what not. No one seems to be helping him, so you simply lean against the opposite counter and let him do what he must. John and Jade come to stand on either side of you, Jade closest to the rest of the group. Dave slinks halfway in, leaning against the doorframe instead of actually entering. 

The kitchen itself is smaller than you are used to, but probably about average for an apartment like this. It sort of resembles a small hallway with things just shoved into it. Both sides have counters, but one also contains a fridge, a stove, and a dishwasher, and has cabinets above the whole side. The other has a sort of window above the counter, opening up to the next room, with a small counter and stools on that side. One side of the room has an archway leading to the hallway you just came from, the other opens up onto the larger room with the stools. The part nearest the kitchen appears to have been turned into a makeshift dining room, while the rest appears to be a living room, with several couches positioned around a large TV on the wall. 

The drummer and the large muscular one are in the other archway, with the one who calls Karkat “Karkitty” perched up on the counter nearest them. The guitarist and the remaining spectator are sitting on the stools and leaning over the other counter to be half-in the kitchen, while Terezi and the bassist are leaning against the counter that Karkat isn’t treating like a warzone. With the addition of you and your friends, the whole thing begins to feel a little overcrowded.

“KK, can’t we listen to someone else’s music for once? Your music sucks.”

“Sollux, who exactly is cooking for your mooching ass? Who exactly is providing sustenance for all your fat asses? Whose kitchen is this? Whose apartment is this!? Guess what!? Not yours! My apartment, my rules, my music!” Karkat slams a large pot down on the stove so hard some of the water spills and sloshes down his shirt. He doesn’t seem concerned, nor does anyone else. You suppose he must always cook like this.

“Karkat, you promised that if we came over for practice –“ The guitarist is smiling as she drawls this.

“I KNOW! I am completely, fully aware that that is what I said! I have the basic memory storage necessary to remember something that I said not two fucking days ago, even if you all hadn’t been reminding me every fucking step of the way, as if I had some debilitating disease that was slowly destroying my brain and you all relied completely on me for food, because all other sources had been destroyed. The second half of which, by the way, seems to be true, because I’m certain that none of you fuckers have eaten anywhere but at my house, at my expense, no less, for two weeks! Two fucking weeks! However, as my brain is not slowly dribbling out of either my nose or my ears, you don’t actually have to remind me every five minutes that I promised to feed you! Look to the past for once in your lives and realize that when I say I will feed you, I ALWAYS FUCKING FEED YOU TWATS! I swear, you’re like fucking feral cats, always looking for your next free meal. And _anyway_ , we weren’t even talking about me feeding you assholes, we were talking about music choice! And like I _said_ , my house, my rules, my music!” He’s grating cheese violently now, and you’re sort of surprised that he hasn’t grated his fingers off. 

“Karcrab,” you hear John snort behind you, “just calm down. You _know_ they’re just baiting you.” And they are. It’s very clear, from how the three of them, Terezi, the bassist, and the guitarist, are all suppressing laughter.

Karkat puts down the cheese, turns around, glares, and actually _growls_ at the three. Terezi bursts into strange little giggles, while the bassist sniggers behind his hand, and the guitarist simply beams at Karkat. 

“My music. Now.” Karkat snarls this as he crosses his arms over his chest. 

“Oh calm down, Karkles.” 

“We’ve had it ready to go for, like, the past five minutes, KK. You’re just too easy.” Karkat is now livid. The bassist holds up his hands, palms forward, in a placating gesture. 

“You do seem a little more on edge that usual, Karkitty. Did something happen? Was school okay?” 

“School was a rotting, festering pile of bullshit, as usual.” Karkat turns back to the stove, throwing some cream and milk into a smaller pot and beginning to stir it.

“Karkles just doesn’t like new people.” Terezi casts a meaningful glance at your group. “You know how he is. Change makes him deeply uncomfortable.” 

“ONE, don’t talk about me like I’m not here! And TWO, I _still_ don’t hear my _fucking_ music playing.”

“Fine, fine, let me just pick a song.” Terezi turns to the ipod attached to a speaker. 

“KK, do you want me to finish grating the cheese for you?” The bassist puts a hand on Karkat’s shoulder. You wonder if he thinks they went too far.

“That depends, will you scrape yourself and bleed on the cheese _again_ , Captor?”

“Oh my fucking god, KK, it was one time!”

“Three times! Three times you have ruined this shit!”

“And all of them were when we were like 8, KK!”

“I never forget. And I never forgive.”

“Fiiiinnneee, KK, I promise to be extra-special-super-duper-careful when grating your precious cheese.”

“Then have at it, douchenugget.”

“Ah, here we go!” Terezi smiles her crocodile grin. “Perfect song to start us off.”

==> [S] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmV2zPXMzdI

You can’t help quirking an eyebrow as you hear the opening strains. You didn’t really take Karkat as a pop kind of guy. 

You’re even more surprised when Karkat just kind of … _melts_. The ever present tension in his shoulders just loosens and falls away, as he stirs his cheese sauce and sways to the beat. And he’s not the only one. The whole group is dancing slightly, swaying where they sit or stand or lean, they’re even singing along. Your group exchanges glances. Jade’s suppressing a small smile. Dave, thankfully, looks less angry, which means he’s less likely to be a passive-aggressive prick. You should have known that Ke$ha would calm him down. And John … John’s eyes are glued to Karkat again. _Interesting_.

The smallest one, the one that was sitting on the counter, grabs Karkat and makes him dance with her. The guitarist vaults over the counter and moves to take up the stirring, deftly dodging the two dancing in the center of the kitchen, turning her head to sing to the bassist. Terezi sidles her way over to Dave and attempts to engage him in rather lewd hip thrusting. You are a little uncomfortable. So is Dave, judging by the tightness of his stance. But when the “beat drops”, which you believe is the technical term, all of them abandon any sense of shame and proceed to dance as well as they can, in chairs, while stirring, wherever they are in this too small kitchen. 

Karkat and the girl are by far the most enthusiastic, dancing in the middle of the kitchen, twirling around one another, back to back now, bouncing up and down, and face to face, singing loud and proud right in each other’s faces. _”Wild child’s looking good, living hard just like we should,”_ they sing as they pull as far away from one another as they can, doing one of those odd dance slide apart things with their hands outstretched towards the other. _”Don’t care who’s watching when we tearin’ it up,”_ circling around the kitchen, Karkat flipping off the girl behind the counter who is making faces at him as she sings along, the dancing girl smiling and winking at the large muscular guy. _”That magic that we got nobody can touch,”_ as they reunite in the center of the room, fist bumping and pulling each other into a shoulder slam. _”Looking for some trouble tonight,”_ Karkat steps back near Terezi and Dave, leaving the girl to dance on her own, as the rest of them still a bit to watch. _”Take my hand I’ll show you the wild side,”_ she jumps surprisingly high, legs bent in the air, hands coming to curl like claws. _”Like it’s the last night of our lives, we’ll keep dancing till we die,”_ some truly impressive dance moves, she must have some kind of training, no one you know can move their hips like that. You certainly can’t, despite some ballet training as a child.

At the chorus, the girl reaches out her hand to Jade, an invitation. Jade doesn’t even hesitate, clearly caught up in the spirit of it all, and soon she’s dancing with a kind of reckless abandon that comes from a natural lack of shame. You’ve seen John dance in a similar way. 

Terezi has abandoned her quest to get Dave to engage with her hip-thrusts, and has instead begun attempting the same with Karkat. However, unlike Dave, Karkat seems to be very used to this, and just rolls his eyes. He lets her continue for a while before grabbing her hips to make her stop and forcing her to dance normally, whereupon she joins the dance group in the center of the kitchen. 

The enthusiastic dancing has spread to nearly everyone in the kitchen. The bassist and the guitarist are bouncing and singing to one another as they grate cheese and stir, respectively, while the drummer is swinging his head back and forth whole-heartedly, and trying to get his large friend to join him. The friend bobs up and down a little and sings quietly back to him, but seems to be the only one in the kitchen aware of how incredibly ridiculous this all is. Meanwhile, the girl behind the counter is standing up on her chair, which does not look even remotely safe, and is swaying so hard her massive amount of hair is flying everywhere. 

Even John has begun to bob up and down a little, casting little smiles back at Dave, probably thinking about how silly it all is. Of course, John loves silly, and he appears to be enjoying himself immensely. 

Terezi shoots a hand out to grab Karkat and pull him into the center of the kitchen and make him dance with her. She throws her hands over his shoulders, trying to pull him closer. On the way, she manages to smack him in the eye. He rears back, rubbing his eye and glaring at her. She just grins at him, and pulls away again to dance on her own. He flips her off, then dances with the girl and Jade. Terezi starts grinding on him from behind, and he rolls his eyes before turning around and making her dance normally again. 

_”It’s pretty obvious that you’ve got a crush,”_ she sings pointedly to him, pulling away a little to go sit on the counter. 

_”That magic in your pants, it’s making me blush,”_ he sneers as he comes to stand between her legs, shoving at her shoulders a little before pulling away. As he walks past Dave, he shoves him a little towards her. Dave gives Karkat a look that you can’t quite read, before going over to dance with Terezi. 

Karkat moves his way back to the stove, pushing the guitarist away from his sauce so that he can take up stirring again. She just laughs at him and goes to dance in the center with Jade and the other girl. The bassist takes up singing to Karkat instead. _”I hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums. Oh what a shame that you came here with someone,”_ he sings as he invades Karkat’s personal space. Karkat doesn’t seem to mind, though he rolls his eyes and glares at the bassist. He sings back though. _”But while you’re here in my arms,”_ the bassist abandons his cheese grating to wrap his arms around Karkat’s middle, plopping his head down on Karkat’s shoulder, _”let’s make the most of this night like we’re gonna die young.”_ Karkat just keeps dancing as he stirs, the bassist dancing with him. Karkat plops his head backwards to glare at him, but keeps singing and dancing and stirring, his shoulders till the loose, the tension not returning. It’s … sweet, looking around this kitchen, at teenagers just … just not caring. Just having fun. Just dancing like idiots around their friends and looking like they don’t have a care in the world.   
The song ends, and Karkat snipes at the bassist to go back to grating the cheese. “Yes, sir,” the bassist says, as he snaps too with a salute and everything. Karkat flips him off, and adds more milk and cream to the sauce. 

The next song that comes on is slower and softer, and people go back to just chilling, mostly. It’s light and relaxed as the next few songs pass, people just singing along, no conversation, just … fun. 

==> A few songs later

The cheese sauce and the macaroni have just been mixed together when the front door slams open. You barely have time to turn around before a rush of blue and purple and expensive cologne pushes past you into the kitchen. The end of his scarf smacks you in the face as he passes.

“Kar,” says the tall, thin young man who has just shoved his way to the center of the room. His voice wavers slightly, but you can’t see his face from this angle. Karkat, however, clearly can.

“Oh, shit,” he mutters as his eyes go wide. He glances around the kitchen, where most of his friends seem to be shifting uncomfortably. “Eridan … Uh, okay, shit, just, just come with me.” He grabs 

‘Eridan’ by the hand and gently leads him out of the kitchen, toward the back of the apartment.

“KK, the food!” 

“Just sprinkle the remaining cheese over it and throw it in the oven for 20 min, it’ll be fine!” he shouts as he goes down the hallway. You hear a door open and close. The whole kitchen is silent for a moment, save for the suddenly inappropriate pop music playing. 

“… Well.” Surprisingly, Dave is the one who speaks up first. “What was all that about?”

“Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about, Dave.” Terezi actually ruffles his hair at that. You are more than a little amused at that, especially because he can’t fix it without ruining his ‘too cool to care’ persona.

“Was he okay? He seemed a little upset,” asks Jade, poking her head out of the room to glance down the hallway towards wherever he and Karkat disappeared to.

“I’m sure Eridan is fine!” It’s too happy, forced, and everyone knows it, but no one calls the girl behind the counter on it. Something’s wrong, but it’s not exactly your place to question it. You know that, even John seems to know that. Or maybe he just doesn’t care. 

Awkward silence falls as the bassist sets the timer. You feel more than ever like you’re intruding on something, some private feud.

“Oh! We never introduced ourselves, did we? Hi! I’m Nepeta.” Nepeta thrusts her hand out, nearly hitting Jade, who laughs and shakes it.

“Hi Nepeta. I’m Jade!” Letting go of Nepeta’s hand, she gestures to each of you in turn. “These are my friends, Dave, John, and Rose. We go to Karkat and Terezi’s school.”

“No duh,” mutters the bassist.

“Oh, cool! I’m starting there tomorrow!” 

“Really?” 

“Yep! My family just moved from across town.”

“What is with you guys and changing schools senior year?” Dave directs this to Terezi, who just sticks her tongue out at him.

“Actually, I’m going to be a junior. I’ve got to repeat anyway, missed too much school last year.” You look at Nepeta, evaluating. “Medical stuff.” She clearly doesn’t really want to elaborate. You let it go.

“I’m Aradia.” The guitarist says, swiftly changing the subject. She elbows the bassist.

“Sollux.” He mutters, before plopping down in front of the oven to stare at the baking food.

“I’m Tavros,” offers the drummer.

“Equius Zahhak.” 

“And I’m Feferi. It’s nice to meet you!”

“Wow! Your names are so weird!” _John. Tact._

“Not everyone can be named _John_.” Sollux replies from his spot on the floor, where Aradia has joined him.

“Oh, I’m sorry, was that rude?” John looks honestly upset, while Dave and Jade snicker a little behind him.

“We apologize for John. He still hasn’t quite mastered thinking before speaking.” 

“Rude, Rose.” He pulls a face at you.

“Now, now, John. If I don’t tell you, how will you ever learn?” He sticks his tongue out at you. You smile sweetly back at him. 

“Rose, right?” You look over to Feferi. “Do you mind if I ask about your t-shirt?”

“Not at all. It’s from a small bookstore – “

“The Furthest Ring, right? I go there all the time!” You blink, surprised. Feferi, with her multicolored skirt and bright smile, does not strike you as the kind of person who would frequent The Furthest Ring. “Did you know they’re hosting their first circle meeting Saturday night?”

“I did not, actually.”

“You should totally come! It’d be nice to know a couple people there, right?”

“I suppose I could swing by.” You glance around the room. Dave has been dragged by Terezi over to talk with the drummer – Tavros. Jade and Nepeta appear to have hit it off, and are enthusiastically talking about something over near the refrigerator. John has settled down on the floor next to Sollux, who is trying his hardest to ignore him. Your friends appear to be fine for now, so you turn back to Feferi. “I don’t suppose you know any good supply shops in town? My favorite just closed last month.” 

You settle against the counter as the two of you discuss the pros and cons of various stores.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took over a month to update shhhhhh  
> This is so happy right now. Such a happy fic. How long will that last?


	3. Dave: Stare weirdly at Terezi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not updating fast yet, but I'm updating faster, and that's a start.

You can’t stop looking at her. 

She’s gorgeous.

And she can tell. She knows you’re looking at her. Everyone else is fooled by the shades, not sure where exactly you’re looking, but she knows. And you know she knows. And for some reason she doesn’t say anything, doesn’t tease you about it, just lets you look your fill. She doesn’t elbow you in the ribs and get you in a chokehold (which she’s done at least three times today) and ask you if you like what you see. She just lets you look.

You know that your friends don’t get it. They don’t get why they’re here, why you let them be dragged here. They don’t get that Terezi is special to you already.

You know what they think. You know why they think you’re here. Well, you know why Rose and John think you’re here. Jade … Jade knows better. You know you’re going to get some shit from her later, for all of this, for all the pretending, but at the moment you don’t really care. Because you’re standing next to a super cool girl who got you more in one day than most people do in a lifetime, a gorgeous new friend. 

You suppose most people wouldn’t look at Terezi and think ‘gorgeous’. Pointy would probably be more common. Scary, certainly. And, if they looked close enough, pitiful would probably make an appearance. 

But gorgeous is the right word. Pointy and scary work too, what with her smile and angles, but gorgeous is the one that fits most, that covers all of that. Gorgeous and wonderful.

She’s trying to engage you in conversation with the drummer guy from the band – Karkat’s band, and isn’t that weird – whose name is Tavros, you’re pretty sure. He apparently likes rap too, but he looks a little too intimidated to actually talk to you. People get like that, occasionally, when they don’t know how to deal with your shades and lack of expression. He’s clutching the hand of the guy who might be something like Equius, who isn’t speaking either, so it’s mainly just Terezi talking. You’re not listening, just watching the way she moves, sharp and fast and gorgeous. You want to curl up next to her and play a truly terrible video game. You want to go over to her house, bake a truly disgusting cake with at least five colors of frosting, and then have her get John to eat it. You want to bring her in as a guest artist on your comic. You settle for not looking away.

At least until John comes to awkwardly stand next to you, abandoning the two still watching the mac and cheese. 

“This food is taking foreeeeevvvveeerrrrr,” he whines, slumping against your shoulder.

“Dude, it’s like fifteen more minutes. Chill.” 

“But I’m huuuuuunnnnggggrrrrryyyy.”

“There is literally nothing I can do about that.” 

“You could rifle through Karkles’s drawers.” She gives her best leer and waggles her eyebrows like the best of them. You are so proud. John turns bright red.

“I – I don’t – I – w – wha- I – “ 

“Actually that’s a good idea,” Sollux says as he stands. “I’m starving and fifteen minutes is way too long.”

“Ha! I’m not the only one! High five!” Sollux doesn’t even acknowledge John. You guess he’s still mad about the name thing. Probably. Man, talk about sensitive. The one with the long hair who plays guitar and whose name you totally missed high fives him instead. 

The three of them begin to hunt through Karkat’s kitchen. He’s got a surprising amount of food, considering that this place can’t have more than two bedrooms. You know apartments, having lived in several throughout your life, and you used to know crappy apartments really well. Two bedrooms usually means about three people at most, and there is enough food to feed a family of twelve, as far as you can see. 

You glance around the room. Seven here, the other one, and Karkat himself, then add in at least one guardian. Maybe not so crazy that he has so much food. 

You open the nearest cupboard, knowing John won’t leave you alone until he finds something. It’s filled to the brim with various kinds of candy. Well, you guess some dessert before dinner wouldn’t hurt anyone. “Yo, Harley.” She’s too ingrained in her conversation with it’s-definitely-Nepeta to hear you. You do the mature thing, and throw a who-knows-how-old box of candy canes at her head. 

Jade plays a lot of sports. You don’t understand how she finds time for them all, but the quick reflexes certainly make being friends with John easier. It’s why she catches the box with ease. “Oooo, I love candy canes! Thanks, Dave!” she says, bright and smiling, rushing to rip off the plastic and get to the treats. You give her a one shoulder shrug before tossing a bag of probably-even-older-oh-my-god-why-do-you-still-have-this Halloween candy at Rose’s back. 

Rose does not play sports. Rose bases absolutely zero of her life skills around athletic ability, and even fewer around quick physical reflexes. She doesn’t even really play video games like the rest of you. Sure, her mental reflexes are some of the sharpest, but physically? Pathetic. 

Unfortunately for you, just as you throw the bag, John calls out “Oh, look, Rose! Rosemary and olive oil chips!” and Rose of course turns, and the bag smacks her in the neck, not the back. This is how your luck goes. The look she levels at you while she finishes coughing could be considered frosty at best. 

John, meanwhile, who had perched himself on top of the counter to get at the high cabinets, jumps when contact is made between the bag and Rose’s throat, knocking his head on the open cabinet door, then proceeds to completely lose his balance and fall onto the floor while useless pinwheeling his arms. It is a spectacular display of Egbert idiocy. Even as a long-time connoisseur of this particular brand of idiocy, you are impressed. 

“John!” Jade detaches completely from Nepeta, candy cane dangling from her mouth, to help John off the floor. It’s your fault, so you join her. Each of you grabs one arm and hauls him off the ground. He looks dazed.

“Egbert, you good?” His eyes are unfocused behind his glasses. You aren’t worried, of course, but Jade looks a little tense.

“Uh, yeah, I – I think – just, uh,” he blinks a lot, like he’s trying to get his eyes to focus. 

“Bro, maybe you should sit down,” you start to guide him over to the couch you can see in the next room. 

“Yeah, good idea,” and then he just goes limp, clearly planning on just lying down in the middle of the kitchen. What can you say, he’s not the brightest when his mind isn’t scrambled by a fall. He didn’t really plan on your grip on him, however, and you didn’t really plan on him just suddenly refusing to support himself, so he takes you out on the way down. You stare at the ceiling and contemplate your life choices while John’s elbow digs into your stomach. 

“Well, you two look comfy,” Rose says, having moved closer in the interim. Her smug tone is laced with worry, and you resent her vaguely for both. 

“Idiots,” Jade sighs, as she bends down and hauls John off you. She’s got an arm around his shoulders and the other under his knees as she carries him bridal style to the couch. You remain in the middle of the kitchen floor, staring up at the light fixture and contemplating the lack of dead bugs in it. When you lived in apartments like this, your lights were always full of dead bugs. Hell, the light in your room in your current apartment (which is on a whole different level from this place) has a bunch of dead bugs. You kind of just thought it was a part of any home life. You wonder if Karkat cleans the bugs out of his lights, or if his family is just really neat. 

“You gonna get up, coolkid?” Terezi has crouched next to her. You do not stop your perusal of the light fixture to look over at her. You have seen her a lot, and you have only rarely seen a bugless light.

“Nah, I think I’m just going to stay here as I slowly become one with the floor. I’ll start to melt first, losing my human shape and becoming more and more like a cool stain on the floor. Soon enough you won’t even bother stepping around me anymore, you’ll just walk over me because you have forgotten, forgotten about that kid you once knew, until I am nothing but a thin film covering the entire floor. At least I’ll get to look up your skirt.” 

You see her crocodile grin out of the corner of your eye. “Karkat will step on you right from the start, in all your most squishy and unprotected places,” she turns your head to look at her, “and I don’t wear skirts, Dave.”

“A pity, that.” And then you let her help you up and lead you into the living room. 

John is laying on the couch, and Jade is crouched next to him, feeling his head, looking for lumps and bumps, you guess. Everyone else has already followed Jade from the kitchen, although you note Sollux has brought along a snack. 

“He’ll be fine,” Jade says, standing up. “He just needs an ice pack and some Advil, I think. Where does Karkat keep those?” The question is met by blank looks. “Seriously?”

“KK usually takes care of any injuries. None of us has ever had to do anything medical here, I think,” Sollux says around a mouthful of Honey Smacks. 

“Karcrab does have a tendency to mother hen a bit.” The bizarrity of that statement hits your whole group hard.

“I must have hit my head harder than I thought. Karkat Vantas, asshole extraordinaire, loudest person in any room ever, and mother hen?” This earns John more than a few glares from around the room. He, of course, doesn’t notice. You’d blame it on the head injury, but that’d just be untrue. “Control freak, maybe.” 

“So what you’re saying is, Vantas is the only one who knows where the first aid shit is?” You cut in before John can completely fuck everything up. 

The long-haired guitar player nods. “Yes, and he doesn’t exactly store things in the usual places.” 

“So someone should go ask him where this shit is.” It’s not a question, or even a suggestion, but no one seems willing to hop to. 

“John really should get an ice pack.” Jade says, helpful and threatening in a way only she can be. God, do you love her. 

“Karkat’s kind of, well, busy, at the moment,” mutters Tavros, when no one else will speak up. 

“He’s just talking to a dude in his room,” you deadpan. 

“We really shouldn’t interrupt their conversation,” the swimmer-looking chick with the goggles throws out. 

You glance around at your group, John lying on the couch, still mouthing words to describe Karkat, albeit without any sound at least, Rose sitting at the other end of the couch, John’s feet in her lap, ostensibly listening to John, but you know she’s keeping an ear on everything, and then Jade standing between the two of them and the other group, fists on her cocked hips. And the other group, Equius studying his hands on Tavros’s wheelchair, Tavros, the only one anywhere close to meeting your eye, the guitarist twirling a strand of her hair, Sollux agitatedly crunching on Honey Smacks, Nepeta bouncing one leg up and down, and the swimmer chick shifting around nervously and casting looks back to the door. And then you glance at Terezi and she isn’t looking anywhere near you, choosing instead to stare at John on the couch. You watch her nostrils flare and feel her tenseness next to you, and she isn’t looking at you. 

You turn sharply towards the hallway that Karkat and that douche with the scarf disappeared down, and she doesn’t try to stop you. 

You guess at the room that they’re in. There’s only four doors down here, one of which you know leads to the practice room. The other is open and clearly shows a bathroom. The next closest one has low voices behind it, and you know that’s the one so you try the knob. Locked. You knock sharply on the door. 

No answer.

You try again.

You can hear them talking, you know they’re in there.

“Hey, Vant-ass, we need you out here.”

The door unlocks quickly, and opens just enough for you to see one angry gray eye glaring at you. “The fuck do you want Strider? I’m actually busy here, and do not have any time for your shit.”

 _Good, because I don’t have time for yours._ “John fell and hit his head. We need a first aid kit.” 

“Shit, seriously?” Huh. You could have sworn he actually sounded sort of concerned there. Underneath the annoyance, of course. “Just give me a minute to grab it.” And then the door is closing, and you can hear his footsteps across the room, along with a “What was that?” and a “Idiocy”.

Then he’s opening the door again, first aid kit in hand. You reach out your hand, planning to grab it from him and go, when he brushes past you, hurriedly heading down the hall. 

You guess there was more to that whole mother hen thing than you thought. 

“Alright, what happened?” he demands, as he tries to brush past Jade as well. 

“We just need an ice pack, it’s not a huge deal, I can do it –“

“Listen, Harley, I have more experience with this shit than you ever will.” He glares at Sollux and his obnoxiously loud Honey Smacks. Sollux just gives a little wave. “Let me guess, you went rummaging through my shit again, Egbert here got up on the counter, and inevitably fell _off_ the counter. Not the first goddamn time this has happened, and despite my numerous warnings, not the fucking last either. Now, he could either have just a bump and a bruise to his ego, or he could have whacked his head on something on the way down and need some more serious help. I suggest you let me check, otherwise I won’t know what to do.” He matches her stance during this speech, and the image of Karkat Vantas with his hands on his hips, staring down Jade Harley, almost makes you actually laugh out loud. Almost. 

Jade stiffens, then finally steps aside. Karkat goes and begins prodding at John’s head while asking him questions. “Does your head hurt?”

“Um, duh?”

“What kind of pain is it?”

“What?”

“Sharp, like I’m stabbing you repeatedly with a knife, or dull, like I’m whacking you over the head with a goddamn hammer?” 

“Uh, hammer, I guess.”

“Dizzy?”

“A little, maybe?”

“You’re probably fine, but you,” he turns to Rose, “should watch the idiot for signs of a possible concussion, just in case. Make sure he doesn’t injure himself any more, I don’t have time for this shit.” He pops and then shakes one of those instant ice packs as he briskly walks to the kitchen. “What food were you even looking for?” he calls back.

“Uh, I don’t know, just food I guess.”

He bustles back into the living room, holding the ice pack wrapped in a kitchen towel in one hand, and Gushers in the other, a can of Pepsi cradled in the crook of his arm. He places the Pepsi on the coffee table (on a coaster, you note, who even knew Karkat Fucking Vantas _had_ coasters), dumps the Gushers on John’s stomach, and then lifts John’s head up to put the ice pack underneath. He then digs a bottle of aspirin out of his clearly oversized first aid kit, pops the childproof lid off, and dumps two pills into John’s hand. “Swallow those with the Pepsi, don’t move, don’t injure yourself further.” He then tosses the remote that’s on the coffee table to Rose, before gesturing to a nearby bookshelf. “TV shows, movies, whatever, it’s all over there. Put anything you take out back exactly where it was, or I swear to whatever terrible, monstrous excuse for a god you worship, Lalonde, I will skin the both of you, tan your hides, and use the leather to make a tasteful couch I will trick Strider over there into buying, forever mentally scarring him. Now don’t bother me again.” And with that he strides out of the room, back down the hall, and you hear a door slam. The massive first aid kit goes with him, but you note the aspirin bottle and an extra ice pack have been left behind. 

Mother hen, indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps next chapter they shall actually make it to eating the delicious mac and cheese.  
> God I love baked mac and cheese.  
> Someone should order me a pizza.


	4. Jade: Contemplate weirdness in relation to Karkat Vantas

You’ve found yourself in a lot of weird situations over the years. Your family doesn’t exactly lead a normal lifestyle, and, for that matter, neither do any of your friends. Case in point, this time last week you were in Rose’s mom’s lab, having an in depth discussion about cloning, while you and Dave examined several of her more interesting subjects. The ones with two heads were his favorites. You liked the ones that were closer to successful. Rose was somewhere in the back, pretending to gather frog guts for spells, merely to freak John out. John was freaking out. He’s very good at that

Which is, of course, what landed you in your current situation. A situation that is, to anyone else, fairly normal. Your spaz of a friend brained himself, and your host helped take care of the injury. This is possibly one of the most normal things you’ve ever done. 

But. But it’s Karkat. It’s Karkat Vantas, he’s your host, he’s the one who just stormed in and yelled his way into looking after John. Karkat, who apparently keeps a first aid kit bigger than your head in his room, whose friends call him Karkles, Karcrab, Karkitty, mother hen.

You glance down at the spare ice pack he left behind. 

It’s just surprising, is all. You are surprised. You’ve been surprised all day. You were surprised by the amount of people in your Independent Science Study class. You were surprised by Terezi Pyrope and all that she entails. You were surprised and vaguely disappointed by how Dave was playing this off. You were surprised by Karkat’s band. You were surprised that Nepeta and her friend Equius make animatronic animal ears and tails. You are surprised by how, underneath under all the vitriol, Karkat was so … nice. How gently he prodded at John’s head, much gentler than you. How efficient he was. How kind, in his own way. He didn’t have to look after John. You offered, but he did it anyway.

The thing is, Karkat Vantas is not kind. Or nice. Those are, in fact, the last words you would use to describe him. He’s a fuckass, is what he _is_. 

He _was_ in your AP Bio class, sophomore year. You were the youngest people there. You were the only two in your grade. 

You’d been nice. You’d been kind. 

He’d been an asshole. 

You’d asked him if he’d like to study together.

He’d gone on a twenty minute long tirade about _not needing your pity._

You hadn’t tried to speak to him again.

He’d spent the rest of the year glaring at you intermittently. 

Thankfully you hadn’t had a class with him again. 

Dave comes to stand next to you. “What now?”

“You should have some Gushers! I haven’t eaten these in years!” John offers you the box. 

“Dude, that was because you _refused_ to eat them. Batterwitch and all that.”

“Yes, John. You used to be quite … adamant about this point.” Rose and you share a look. You both very well remember the _long_ rants about this topic that you had to endure. John can be – let’s go with _longwinded_ \-- at times. 

“Oh. Oh!” John chucks the box onto the coffee table. “I can’t believe I forgot about that!” You can’t help but giggle at that. He’s pretty disoriented, you guess. 

“Batterwitch?” Feferi steps forward to peer curiously at John. “What do you mean?”

“John has this whole thing about Betty Crocker!” You chime in. “It’s pretty weird, but we love him anyway.”

“Hey!” You shoot John a smirk to rival Dave’s. He just pouts. “Shut up. You don’t know anything.”

“Sorry, bro, must’ve confused Jade and yourself.” Dave slings an arm around your neck and leans heavily on you. He’s lucky you can support his clingy ass. “I know it’s hard, you two look so damned alike, just remember the key difference.”

“ _I’m_ actually smart.” You beam at him. He sticks his tongue out at you and Dave. Rose hides a chuckle behind her hand. It’s nice. It’s a nice snarky moment and it feels for a minute like it’s just the four of you. 

“You think the food’s done?” Sollux is the one who interrupts the moment, apparently done with his sugary cereal, since he’s finally stopped munching on it. 

“It’s another five minutes at least.” Aradia flicks his nose. He makes a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat and slinks back to the kitchen. Aradia links arms with Feferi and follows him.

“Would you guys like anything else to eat?” Nepeta asks.

“Perhaps something more substantial than … candy.” There’s a disdain evident in Equius’s voice. You think you might even be slightly offended. You love candy. Candy is the best. 

Nepeta swats at his shoulder. “They can eat what they want! But we’re probably going to make a salad to go along with the food, right Equius?” He nods curtly. “And I think Tavros is going to heat up something vegan up in the microwave, right?” 

“Yeah, I was going to see what Karkat has.” 

“I will come with you.” Tavros smiles up at Equius, who may blush a little. Cute. They retreat to the kitchen.

“I didn’t know Karkat was vegan,” you comment to Nepeta. 

She bursts into giggles. “Karkitty? Vegan? Please, he doesn’t eat enough as it is. Way too much trouble for him to bother with dietary restrictions too. He only bothers to cook when he has company over.”

“But – “

“He just keeps some meals in stock so that Tavros can eat with us. Or, as he put it, ‘I couldn’t stand seeing the shitwaffle making sad eyes at the food all the goddamn time’.” Her voice goes low and growly in a terrible Karkat impression. “Really he just didn’t want Tavros to be left out, ‘cause it only took like two days after he decided to go vegan for Karkat to have food stocked.”

“I don’t know, two days seems like plenty for Vantas’s tiny temper.” Dave’s not leaning on you anymore, but his arm’s still around your shoulder. There’s something weird about his voice. Something about the way he says Vantas. Or perhaps it’s less about his voice, and more about the fact that he’s contributing to the conversation at all. You side eye him a little. 

Nepeta tilts her head and narrows her eyes a little as she looks at him. “And how exactly do you know Karkat?” There’s an edge to her voice. Protective. 

Time to nip whatever this is in the bud. “We don’t, really. We just go to the same school. We only came here because Terezi wanted to.”

“She didn’t even tell us where we were going,” John throws in from the couch. “She just led us here. We just followed a random girl without knowing where we were going. Why did we do that? How did I let that happen, Rose? How did you let that happen? Isn’t that how horror movies start?” He’s babbling. Maybe you should more a little more worried about him. “I’m still not convinced that’s not what’s happening here. I bet you guys are like some weird cult thing, and we’re like the sacrifices. Oh my god! Dave! We should make a cultist horror movie! We could so do it, you could film and edit and I could act and direct and Jade could be the scientist who doesn’t believe and Rose could be the good witch who helps us! And Terezi could be like the evil henchman, and Karkat could be the head of the cult. He’d be a good head of a cult, a good villain, he’s got the face for it, don’t you think? Yeah, Karkat could tooootaaallly be the villain! He’s so … villainous!” You face-palm. So not helping, John.

Nepeta’s got this weird look on her face. Confused, maybe, with her scrunched up nose and her furrowed eyebrows, but a hint of anger lingering around the eyes, and almost a suppressed smile at her lips. She snorts a little laugh, you think. “ _What_ does Karkitty _do_ at school to make you all think this?” 

“Nepeta,” Equius calls from the kitchen, “it is time to make the salad.” 

“Coming!” She calls back, relaxing as she turns and hop-skips back to the kitchen. You catch a quiet little “Karkat, a villain! Hah!” as she goes. 

Now it’s just the four of you and Terezi in the room. Terezi has begun perusing Karkat’s DVD collection. 

It’s Dave who breaks the silence. 

“Rez.” 

She stills, then turns around. Her face is calm.

“Why did you bring us here?”

Her crocodile grin spreads slowly across her face. “I already told you that.”

“No you didn’t! Weren’t you listening when I was explaining this two seconds ago?” John looks personally offended.

“Well, maybe I didn’t tell you _specifically_ , but you certainly _heard_ me say why.”

You glance at Dave in confusion. He doesn’t look away from Terezi. You look to Rose instead. She probably remembers.

“You think we’ll get along well with Karkat.” Thank god for Rose sometimes. Most times. Hell, all of the times! “You’re looking out for him.” Terezi looks … proud, somehow.

“Karkat has lots of friends, as you can see,” she turns back to the DVD collection. “It’s just that none of them happen to go to your school. This leaves a whole 8 hours without friends. Such a sad existence, don’t you think?” Her tone is torn between overly mournful and smug, and somehow manages to just sound fond. “And I’m finally in a position to fix that.”

“You really think Vantas – “ 

“Karkles is very friend-oriented,” she cuts Dave off. “But that doesn’t mean he’s good at making friends, the idiot, or that he’ll be friends with just anyone. Or that we’ll let him be friends with just anyone,” she whirls back around to look at you all again, with what you think is a DVD clutched in her hand. “Congratulations! You have earned the Pyrope seal of approval. You should be very proud, I don’t approve of just anyone.” She begins to walk back towards the kitchen. 

“But Karkat’s an asshole!” You can’t help it. You don’t like being manipulated, you don’t like Karkat Vantas, and right now you don’t like Terezi very much either.

“Certainly,” Terezi saunters past you. “But then again, who isn’t?” 

It’s just after she’s disappeared into the kitchen that the timer goes ding and Sollux calls out “Finally!”

Which is shortly followed by Aradia yelling “Sollux! Use oven mitts, for god’s sake!”

Feferi pokes her head out the window between the kitchen and the living room. “Want to help with plates and things? We’re going to eat in front of the TV, so John doesn’t have to move!”

“Sure,” you sigh, and go to help out. Dave and Rose follow. 

You’re in the kitchen, grabbing some silverware, when a door suddenly slams open and someone stomps down the hallway. You poke your head out of the archway to see the guy with the scarf, Eridan, you think, storming towards the door. 

“ **ERIDAN AMPORA!** YOU LEAVE THIS FUCKING APARTMENT AND YOU WILL **REGRET** IT!” Karkat screams from down the hallway. 

“Kar, I’m not doing this! Not now, not ever!” Eridan has his back towards the door now, and he’s inching slowly backwards. 

“ _Eridan. Ampora._ ” Karkat’s voice goes deep and low and growly as he _stalks_ towards Eridan, who has completely frozen now. It has never struck you before how big Karkat is. He’s normally hidden in baggy sweatshirts, but he’s ditched that for a t-shirt that shows how much muscle he actually has. He’s glowering in a way that makes your blood run cold, and it’s probably just the lighting in the hallway, but he looks downright murderous right now. You don’t know why Nepeta laughed at Karkat the Villain, because he’s playing the part perfectly right now. He’s terrifying. “ _Yes, you fucking are._ ” He tilts his head to the side and the slight smirk he’s got on is scarier than any of Terezi’s crocodile grins. “ _In fact, you’re goint to do it right. now._ ” 

Eridan gulps. “Kar-“ 

“NOPE!” Karkat seizes Eridan by the arm and drags him past you, into the kitchen, where he practically throws him to the ground in front of the rest of the group. All of whom have also frozen, by the way. Karkat crosses his arms over his chest and glares Eridan down. “Now. Apologize.” Wait what?

Eridan mimics him, arms crossed over his chest. He’s clearly trying to match Karkat’s glower, which you’re not sure can be done. Eridan’s just comes off more as a pout anyway. “No.” 

Karkat just raises one eyebrow. 

“I w-won’t.” 

Karkat starts tapping his foot. 

Eridan drops the pose completely, clenching his fist and stomping his foot like a five-year-old kid. “But Kaaaaarrr…” 

“ _Eridan_ ,” Karkat growls low in his throat. 

For a second, Eridan looks every bit the spoiled little kid about to cry. “Fine!” He whips around, only to look more scared than spoiled when he actually looks at everyone else in the room. “I – “ he glances around the room, eyebrows furrowing when his gaze alights on you, Rose, and Dave, before just hanging his head. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. “ He sounds so scared, you almost reach out to touch his shoulder. “I – What I did was wrong, and unjustifiable, and – and I’ll never do anything like it again, I promise. Or, at least, I’ll try as hard as I can not to, alright?” 

The whole room relaxes just a little.

“I think there are some _specific_ people you owe apologies to.” Karkat’s foot is tapping again. 

“Fine! Geez Kar!” He raises his head, and you see a glint of tears in his eyes. “Soll, I – I shouldn’t’ve attacked you. I – I overreacted. In the worst possible way. I – I’m sorry.” His hands come to grip at his scarf, as he slowly turns to look at Feferi. “Fef – Fef, I – you were right. You were so right, and I am so sorry. I – what I did was unforgivable, I know.” 

You feel like you’ve walked in on the end of a really emotional movie, the scene where the conflict is finally resolved, only you have no clue what happened or who’s in the wrong, or who anyone is for that matter. 

There’s a tense moment where no one moves, everyone’s face a calm mask, before a slow, fond smile spreads over Feferi’s face. “Not _unforgivable_.” Eridan exhales like he’s just had all the air knocked out of him. “Not that you’re forgiven! But, it’s a start.” She holds out her hand to him. “Come on, we’re about to eat. You should join us.” 

Eridan glances around the room, which has gone soft and warm in a way you don’t quite understand, due to walking in at the end of the movie. 

“Come on, fishbrains, the food’s getting cold.” Sollux isn’t so soft and fond, but he’s not as barbed as he was earlier. 

Eridan sighs a couple disbelieving laughs. “You – you sure you want me?”

Feferi grabs his hand. “Come on, you idiot,” she snickers as she drags him to the living room. 

You hear him say, “Who the fuck is on the couch?” before you’re distracted by what’s now going on in the kitchen. Sollux has gotten Karkat in a chokehold while Terezi gives him a noogie. 

“Can’t believe you actually got the shit to do that, KK.” 

“Get the fuck off me! I will throw the food at your fucking head, you will be covered in cheese burns and broken glass, and I will laugh for days, dickmucher!”

“We’re so proud of you, Karkles,” Terezi chuckles, as she frees him from Sollux’s grasp to hug him. 

“What the fuck ever, so I got the dumbass to apologize, big whoop, it would’ve happened sooner or later. Now let’s fucking eat before Lalonde has a chance to chime in on this shit. I can feel it building and I am so far from in the mood right now for her horseshit, halfass psychoanalysis.” Rude! At least, you think so, but Rose doesn’t seem to mind. 

“I assure you, Karkat, I would never psychoanalyze your interactions with your friends. Who am I to judge the manipulative way you made your friends bend to your will? Rather, I should be applauding you for doing this so neatly. Who knew brute force could work so well?” There is a cutting, yet playful edge to Rose’s voice. Answering Karkat’s taunt, you think. 

“Fuck you, Lalonde. No, just fuck you. I’m not even going to bother coming up with an amusing, long-winded way to say it, because that’d just give you too many openings. Just straight up. fuck. you. Now, let’s go eat, quick, fast, before she has a chance to respond!” Karkat goes to grab the salad bowl from Nepeta. 

“Not yet, Karkles. There’s a tradition you’re neglecting.” Terezi’s voice is smug as she walks over to the control for the music. 

“Seriously?” Karkat basically whines. “In front of these douchebags?”

“Tradition is tradition, Karkles!” Terezi smirks as she hits the music. 

==> S:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvvamodXZbw

“To the living room, everyone!” Terezi grabs a stack of plates and leads the march as the music blares out far louder than it needs to be. 

And everyone, including you, Rose, and Dave, grabs whatever they were near, silverware, plates, serving spoons, with Sollux carrying the precious mac and cheese, and follows Terezi to the living room.

And it’s just like before, like things never got tense, like Eridan was always there and that emotional movie scene never happened. Everyone’s singing along, dancing as much as they can with whatever they’re carrying. And you just feel yourself taken up by it, and you’re singing and doing a little wiggle dance too, because everything is just suddenly so happy and light and you don’t know how it did that. But Nepeta’s doing a little air guitar move and it just looks so silly and you join in as soon as your silverware is on the coffee table. 

“Seriously? We’re still doing this silly thing?” Eridan snarks, but he’s beaming and he just laughs when Feferi elbows him in the side, and pulls a ridiculous face when Sollux bops him on the head. 

And Aradia’s striking a “gangsta” pose and Sollux is sniggering before she punches him in the stomach. And Nepeta’s grabbing your hands and making you dance with her as she sings, _”Don’t be fancy, just get dancy,”_ and it’s downright adorable. And you can’t help but sing _”Why so serious?”_ straight to Dave, only to find out Terezi is doing the same, and you guess she’s alright, because Dave is pulling the same face at both of you, and anyone who gets Dave to pull a face is alright in your book. 

And then all of a sudden Karkat and Equius and Tavros are opening bottles of Martinelli’s Sparkling Apple Cider and setting out one champagne flute for everyone, pouring thirteen glasses of it. Karkat pours it for you and each of your friends, handing them off to everyone, one by one, even bothering to set John’s down in front of him instead of letting him hold it. (Which is probably the wise thing to do, because John breaks glasses even when he’s not injured.) And he makes eye contact with each one of you, which is odd because he’s singing at the same time. _”Wish you’d just freak out.”_ he sings, as he hands you your glass last. _”Freak out already.”_ is a side glance as he moves on. And it feels personal and strange and he is so different. 

And you plop down between Dave and Rose, Dave having moved John so his head is on his lap, John’s upper legs on yours, and his feet on Rose’s. Knowing her, she’ll take advantage of this to tickle him a couple times. When you’re friends with John, you take your revenge where you can get it. He’s not usually easy to catch off guard, growing up with the pranking master as he did. 

And Nepeta and Karkat are dancing around at the front of the room, doing ridiculously over the top dance moves that they’re somehow both really good at. They’re sliding past one another and moonwalking and at some point Nepeta pulls a disco move out before twirling away to sit down and you just can’t help but laugh. 

Now the whole room has a champagne flute with sparkling apple cider, and they are really, honestly, singing along to the song, raising their glasses to one another. Tavros next to Equius next to Nepeta next to Terezi on one side, looping past your group to Aradia in an armchair next to Sollux on a couch next to Feferi next to Eridan, with a spot left open at the end of the couch for Karkat, who is standing in front of the TV, leading the whole singing, glass-raising bonanza.

_”So raise your glass if you are wrong, in all the right ways! All my underdogs! We will never be, never be, anything but LOUD, and nitty gritty, dirty little freaks!”_ And then they all start to down their glasses and you all just follow along, except for John. Dave downs his pretty quickly, then sets his glass down on the table, before helping John up a bit to drink his. The protocol for this weird little ritual seems to be to set it back on the table when you’re done, so you do that. It’s funny, John was joking about them being a cult earlier, but honestly, they’re a little cult like, right now. Except it’s not creepy, it’s just funny and silly and _fun_.

”Oh shit, my glass is empty! That sucks!” Everyone turns to someone near them to say this. Aradia ends up turning to Rose, who plays along like a good sport. You say it to Dave, who is helping John finish off his drink. Some people shout it, some people whisper it, and everyone is smiling and hiding laughter. 

And then everyone goes quiet as Karkat fishes out another couple of bottles of Martinelli’s, before beginning to refill everyone’s glasses, one by one, as he walks around the coffee table. Only Karkat is left singing. _”So if you’re too school for cool. And you’re treated like a fool. You can choose to let it go. We can always, we can always, party on our own.”_ He’s incredibly quick about it, although to be fair he’s not filling them up all the way, and he’s clearly got a lot of practice doing this. 

He’s back to standing in front of the TV again when he goes _”So raise your – aw, fuck – “_ and then all of a sudden everyone is joining in again, louder than before, practically screaming. And they just sit there for a moment, just smiling and laughing and singing at the top of their lungs, glasses raised high in the air. _”So raise your glass if you are wrong, in all the right ways! All my underdogs! We will never be, never be, anything but LOUD, and nitty gritty, Dirty Little Freaks!”_ And this time instead of downing their glasses, they just take a sip and put it down, as Karkat falls down over the arm of the couch so his legs are slung over it and his head is in Eridan’s lap. And then the singing dies down as they start serving the food to everyone. Sollux dishes it up for everyone, and the music winds its way down as the singing stops all together when people begin to eat, some people (*cough*John and Dave*cough*) just shoving their faces full of mac and cheese, with no regard for manners.

“This is really good, Karkat!” John manages to say around a particularly large mouthful. 

Karkat just grunts and goes back to talking to Eridan about something you can’t quite hear over the last strains of the music. 

_”Just come on and come and raise your glass! For me.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My god these chapters take forever to write. Like, not kidding this took forever. And even remotely timing the songs to the reading is annoying. Why am I doing a song fic? Why am I trying to do a song fic with lyrics in the body of the text? 99% of the time those don't turn out well. 
> 
> Also there is so much pale shipping in this fic. You have no idea.


	5. Dave: Be weirded out

You want to leave. You want to go home, because things are getting weird here. You don’t know if it’s just you, feeling like this. You don’t think it is. John, for one, is certainly uncomfortable. His head cleared up a bit more after the mac and cheese and cider. He thinks he’s well enough to sit up, and you’re inclined to agree, but Vantas took exception to his attempts. Extraordinarily loud exception. 

It’s just … 

They’re so …

It’s weird. It’s weird as shit. 

It hadn’t been so bad when Terezi had been there to help guide you, but she’s not even trying anymore. She’s deep in conversation with Aradia about something or other, and she’s not paying any attention to you at all. 

You’re feeling a little abandoned. And a lot out of place.

“You shitdick! I’m going to fucking _destroy_ you!”

“Eheheheheh I’d like to see you try, KK.”

It doesn’t help that he’s here. 

Karkat Vantas. 

Surrounded by admirers. 

That’s not exactly true. They’re his friends, and you know yours look at you the same way. But you’re you. And he’s him. And you’ve never seen anyone look at him with the affection that Nepeta sends his way, and you find it hard to look at the scarf douchebag’s hands running through his hair, pushing it back from his forehead and drawing attention to his fucking powerful eyebrows, drawn together in concentration. They’ve moved the table out of the center of the couches and are sitting in the middle of the floor, playing Mario Kart. The swimmer chick’s got her legs draped across his while she leans on Sollux, and it’s all so goddamn warm and friendly and it’s weird as fuck to see him right in the middle of it all. 

“Woooo! Go Karcrab!” she calls out as he pulls out in front of Sollux. 

“FF!”

“Hush, you always win. You don’t need me rooting for you.”

“You’re the worst, FF.” She shoves his shoulder. 

Karkat’s quiet for once, biting his lip in concentration. His tongue is sticking out of the side of his mouth. You resist the urge to grab it and pull.

Yeah, it’s time for you and yours to go home, you think. You’re not sure how long you’ve been here, what with the music and the fighting and the eating, but they’ve swapped video games a couple times already and it’s probably been hours. You’d check your phone but John’s still lying across you lap and you don’t want to shift him. He’s pulling faces at Rose, who’s across the room, listening to Jade and Equius’s conversation about robotics or some shit. Rose looks bored as shit too, and that tends to lead to conversations taking swift left turns out of nowhere, so you think it’s probs time to get her out of here too.

“ **You ass-shitting junglehumping dickwad!** ”

“ _Eheheheheheheheheh-_ “

“ **Really? The fucking blue shell? I was two fucking seconds from winning, you pantslicking sack of absolute regurgitated garbage! _Rematch!_** ”

“Whatever you say, KK. Rainbow Road?”

==> Abscond

“Okay, yeah, Imma ditch out now,” you announce as you adjust Egbert into a sitting position. “There’s only so much abuse my ears can take.”

“Stick it up your ass, Strider.” 

“Naw thanks, babe, maybe later.” Karkat makes an over the top gagging noise. 

“But _Daaaaaaaveee_ , you’re our ride home! If you go, we all have to!” Jade whines, clearly enjoying her conversation. 

“Well gee, Harley, guess you’re in a pickle there. Shame I can’t do anything about it.”

“We should probably get John home, in any case.” Sometimes Rose really comes through for you. Usually she doesn’t, but _sometimes_ she shines.

“Oh fine. Let’s go. Bye everyone!” She does an overly enthusiastic wave as you lead the way to the door.

“Wait!” So close. “You sure he can walking all the way back?” Karkat jerks a thumb at John, who looks a little affronted at the question of his ability.

“I’m not –“

“Did I ask you, assmunch?” 

“You –“

“He’ll be fine,” you cut in. You just want to get out of here. “Egbert’s a klutz, but he’s sturdy enough.”

“ _Gee, thanks Dave,_ ” John sneers.

“Really, Karkat, your concern for John is – is _touching_ ,” ooooo yeah, go for it Rose, “but we have managed him for seventeen years, I think we can get him home safely.”

“What exactly are you implying, Lalonde?” Vantas crosses his arms over his chest, maybe trying to look menacing, but just looking more uncomfortable than anything else. The slight blush he’s sporting doesn’t do anything to help. Honestly, his failed attempt at posturing is more _cute_ than threatening.

God, today’s been weird. 

“Oh, I’m not implying anything, Karkat. Well, not _yet_. But perhaps you’d better let us be on our way.” Rose turns sharply to the door, primly smirking, linking arms with Jade along the way. “Goodbye.”

“Wait!” Damn, you really thought Vantas would let you go after that. Aren’t guys like him supposed to balk at the slightest implication that they care for another guy? “You fucktards aren’t going anywhere on foot. If he collapses on the way back or some shit like that, I’ll be the one held accountable.”

“Well, our car’s back at the school! If you’re not letting us walk, how exactly are we getting back, Karkat?” Oh goody, now Jade’s fed up. Joy.

“ **As I was fucking saying,** Equius, you drove here, right?” 

“As usual, I drove myself, Nepeta, and Tavros.”

“Great. You know where my school is, just drop them off there. Now you assholes can go. Aka, get the fuck out of my apartment.” And with that, he turns back to his video games.

You’re all kind of just frozen there for a second, until Equius clears his throat. He’s got his keys in hand and is opening the door for you. “You do not mind being driven by me, I assume?”

“Nope! That means we can continue our discussion!” And just like that, Jade’s bad mood is gone. At least for the moment. She rushes out the door with Equius, jabbering excitedly all the way to the car. Rose follows more sedately, and you’re left to watch over John. 

“So. _Sturdy enough?_ ” Yeah, this is gonna be fun. 

Fuck Karkat. 

Seriously, just fuck that guy.

 

==> Some time later

You don’t get home for at least another hour and a half. First you have to drop off all of your friends at their houses. You’re never quite sure how you ended up being the chauffer of the group. You guess it’s because you were the first to get a car and that job just never shifted hands. It’s not like you mind (most of the time anyway), it’s just annoying sometimes. Usually when other things have been annoying. Like today. And then of course you also actually live in the next town over, so it’s about a 30 minute drive to your house. Again, usually no big deal, you listen to music and chill on the way back. It’s just when a day’s been kinda stressful and all you want to do is get home, chill, maybe mix some beats, maybe just lie on your bed and stare up at the ceiling, but you have to get through this fucking half-hour drive first. Not super annoying or anything, but, well, you know. 

And god, today was stressful. 

Not at the start. It wasn’t even exciting at first. First day of senior year, whatever. It’s just like all the other first days, and you’ve had enough of them to be sick by now. It’s only optimistic idiots, like John, who get all sentimental about things like the first day of senior year. It’s cute when he does it, like an excited puppy, but you think it’s pretty stupid too, like an excited puppy. 

And then … and then _Terezi_.

But then _Karkat_. Ew. Gross. 

You really don’t get why Terezi likes him. You guess they’ve been friends a long time, or whatever, but still. Dude’s a jerk. You’re about 500% sure he’s never been nice to a single person at school. He’s always skulking around in hoodies and baggy pants, looking like he’s never slept a day in his life, giving everyone a champion scowl. You guess on a smaller guy it might be cute or something, but Vantas is tall enough to make it kinda creepy. And apparently he’s pretty damn muscled too. Like whoa, him in that t-shirt. Welcome to the gun show, starring Karkat Vantas’s biceps. Also you’re pretty sure he has a six pack hidden under his t-shirt and wow is that something you’d like to see. Maybe you’d like Vantas more if he just found reasons to take his shirt off all the time.

…

Nah. You’d still hate the dude, you decide as you pull into the parking lot. 

You thank god that your bro isn’t home at the moment. The fact that you came home after the first day of school without an armful of shit won at the arcade would make him suspicious, which would probably lead to a strife, and you’re just so not in the mood at the moment. You shuffle into your room, tossing your backpack on the ground and crash-landing face first onto your bed. 

==> Contemplate your crush on Karkat Vantas

You don’t have a crush on him. You _don’t_. 

Seriously. 

You honestly don’t understand how anyone could like him. Or, at least, you didn’t. He’s a dick. Like, you’re a dick, but he’s a _dick_. Jade’s told you all about her experience with him, and even before that you knew he was a jerkoff. 

He came to your school in 8th grade, around halfway through the year, and it didn’t take you two looks to know that he was bad news. With his clearly unwashed hair, the dark bags under his eyes, and the prize-winning scowl on his face. He got sent to detention first day for cussing out the homeroom teacher. Your homeroom teacher, in case that wasn’t clear. 

Then you caught him smoking. Thirteen fucking years old and smoking, who the shit does that? Like, you’re all about the rebel image or whatever, but thirteen’s a little young, y’know? Not to mention smoking’s awful for you. You mess around with drinking, but like hell you’re damaging your lungs. So not worth it. For you, anyway.

He’d punched you in the dick and ground his cigarette out in front of your face while you were curled up on the ground. You’d punched him in the face the next day and resolved to call it even. You hadn’t really thought much about him since.

Much. 

It’s just …

You don’t have a crush on him. Really, honestly, no irony, no bullshit, you don’t have a crush on him.

He’s just super goddamn attractive. 

His _hair_ , man, it’s just like the most perfect shit you’ve ever seen. He’s got this dark, dangerous vibe going on with his eyebrows and his scowl and his _eyes_ , and you can’t blame a guy for noticing. It’s really not fair all that hotness being condensed into one guy. Just really fucking unfair. 

And _dat ass_ …

It just sucks that his attitude is so shitty. 

Or, you mean, you thought it was. 

Today was weird. 

Your computer dings from next to you. It occurs to you that you just spend several minutes lying on your bed like an overly dramatic teenage girl, thinking about crushes. Good thing Rose wasn’t here to see this. You’d never hear the end of it. 

==> Answer Jade

\--gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG]\--  
GG: so im not the only one who thought that was weird, right????  
TG: harley youre gonna have to clarify that statement  
TG: so much shit went down today  
TG: you could be talking about anything  
TG: like how apparently lalondes got some weird soft spot for assholes  
TG: or at least one asshole  
TG: cutting him breaks when we never get any  
TG: whats that shit about aint supposed to do that to your friends  
TG: sorry cant give you any breaks gave em all away to this random jackoff  
TG: try again tomorrow  
TG: hint i wont have any then either  
GG: okay yeah that was weird too, but i meant karkat!  
GG: what was up with all those people???  
TG: inorite   
TG: karkat?  
TG: friends??  
TG: just doesnt match up  
TG: weird ass shit man  
TG: maybe theyre all just nuts  
GG: i dunno, nepeta seemed pretty normal to me …  
TG: her jacket had a tail attached  
GG: oh so what :P  
TG: just sayin  
GG: that would make terezi crazy too you know!  
TG: …  
TG: jade  
TG: jade did you not meet terezi  
TG: shes awesome but  
TG: girl got issues  
TG: like for reals light of my life but nuts doesnt even begin to cover the shit shes got goin on  
TG: for one thing she actually likes vantas  
GG: well, she likes you so weve already proven her taste isnt the greatest  
TG: you cut me deep harley  
GG: :D  
GG: speaking of terezi  
TG: no  
GG: dave, i know what youre doing and its not fair to use her like that  
TG: jade you have no clue what im doing  
TG: youre just popping in with all these assumptions  
TG: and we all know how that ends  
TG: asses everywhere  
TG: not even dem fly booties like you and i got just saggy old man butts  
TG: nobody wants to see that shit  
TG: nobody  
GG: dave it is not fair to lead her on like that!  
GG: shes pretty cool, and she doesnt deserve you being a dick to her!  
TG: dude  
TG: harls  
TG: she knows  
GG: wait you told her????????  
TG: pft  
TG: no  
TG: she just knows  
GG: how?  
TG: idk man shes got like wicked crazy gaydar or some shit  
TG: its not even just gaydar actually  
TG: its like everythingdar  
TG: which i guess could just be like a radar or whatevs  
TG: she just knows shit  
TG: shes like rose  
TG: she just fucking knows shit  
TG: no sherlock holmes over the top heres how i figured it out guys explanations  
TG: just quietly knowing  
TG: hiding shit from them is like the hardest shit ever  
TG: they just know all  
TG: or like rez knows all  
TG: rose aint at rezs level yet  
TG: got some leveling up to do  
TG: gotta fastidiously play those vid games  
TG: build that skill level  
TG: yo you wanna play some neopets  
GG: stop trying to deflect!!!!!!!!!!!  
GG: … also yes, but after we have this very important conversation!!!!!!  
GG: so you talked about this with her?  
TG: jade  
TG: youre supposed to be the smart one  
GG: okay yeah, thats what i thought  
GG: but if you didnt talk about it how do you know she knows?  
GG: you might be the one making asses, dave  
TG: no look  
TG: idk how i know  
TG: and how she knows for that matter  
TG: but she totes knows  
TG: 100% certainty here  
TG: no saggy old asses up in here  
TG: not on my watch  
GG: dave  
GG: why dont you just tell them?  
GG: wouldnt that be easier than all this?  
TG: harley no  
TG: were not having this conversation  
TG: weve already had it  
TG: were not doing this again  
TG: you keep trying and imma ollie outie so fast  
GG: okay, okay, ill stop  
GG: i just …  
GG: i want you to be happy dave.  
TG: i know  
TG: …  
TG: can we just play neopets and forget about all this shit for awhile  
GG: only if we play key quest! :D  
TG: hells to the yeah

==> Many Key Quests later

Playing Key Quest calms you down, plus it outfits your neopets with some pretty sweet swag, so you manage to go to sleep not too disturbed by the whole thing. So what if Vantas isn’t exactly who you thought he was 100% of the time? You guess people can’t be little pissbabies 24/7, everyone’s gotta take a break sometime. 

 

==> Go to school

By school the next day, you’re sure all the drama is over. After all, Rez may want you to be friends with him, but he really doesn’t look like he needs it, and you really don’t want to, so it all balances out. You probably won’t see him out of school like ever again and everything will be chill. No big deal or anything, but you just have no interest in hanging out with that dude. Seriously. 

You have homeroom with Terezi and the two of you spend it passing increasingly awesome doodles back and forth. You’re pretty sure she can’t actually see the pictures, but she seems to be having fun anyway, so you don’t question it. 

You manage to get through the first half of the day without even seeing Vantas. You don’t see Nepeta either, which makes Jade a little sad, but you’re sure you’ll see her sometime. 

You’re on your way to your 4th period class, walking with Terezi, when you hear music coming from the quad. 

It’s some acoustic guitar strumming, along with a light humming. Clearly someone’s practicing. Terezi perks up when she hears it, before taking off at a run. 

You slink after her, pretty sure she won’t ditch you. You round the corner of the building, coming out onto the quad just as Terezi gets tackle-pounced by a very excited Nepeta. 

And there, sitting on the ground and strumming at the guitar, ever-present sweatshirt laid out on the ground next to him where Nepeta was clearly sitting two seconds ago, is Karkat Vantas. The sun kind of halos his hair a little at this angle, and you wonder if he owns any loose shirts, because his all seem to cling under his huge hoodies. 

He’s smiling. 

It’s small, barely there, and you’re almost inclined to believe that you’re imagining it, because it disappears as soon as Terezi actually turns her attention to him, actually pays attention, 

But the image sticks in your mind, the immense amount of warmth carried in that upturned lip and flash of teeth. 

Wow.

You’re fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It takes me over a month to update" - the real description of this fic  
> I'm trying to figure out the pesterlog stuff and it's complicated  
> And Dave is so, so fucked. The most fucked.


	6. Jade: Worry about Dave

\-- gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] –-   
GG: dave what’s up with your face?  
TG: whats up harley   
TG: cant handle how much hotter i just got overnight  
TG: its called convenient puberty and it is a massively overrepresented phenomenon   
TG: i wish i could say itll happen to you one day but chances are it wont   
TG: only the truly favored get this  
GG: actually i meant why do you look like youre going to throw up????  
GG: seriously even john noticed something was up at lunch  
GG: did something happen with terezi?  
TG: what  
TG: no  
TG: terezi and i are so chill  
TG: nearly as chill as you and i   
GG: so whats up then????  
TG: nothing  
TG: everythings chill  
TG: nothing weird happened today at all  
TG: completely normal over here  
GG: dave >:(  
TG: wat  
GG: >:0   
GG: tell me whats going on  
TG: i told you nothing is going on  
TG: everythings chiller than the currently melting north pole over here  
TG: all good  
TG: no worries  
GG: >:0   
TG: whoops gtg  
\-- turntechGodhead [TG] is now an idle chum! –-

You huff angrily at your phone and contemplate throwing it across the room. You restrain yourself when you teacher clears her throat in a ‘get-back-to-work’ way behind you. 

Sighing, you tuck your phone away and stare at the reading you’re supposed to be doing. Free periods became mandatory study halls for you after that time you caused a far-smaller-than-everyone-makes-it-out-to-be explosion in the chemistry lab, so you’re trapped in here with all the freshmen and sophomores instead of being allowed to roam around with your friends like every other senior. Totally unfair and uncalled for, you think. It wasn’t even your fault; someone had mislabeled some chemicals and you really shouldn’t be blamed for that. 

You try to focus on the book in vain; you know you won’t actually absorb anything right now. You’re too worried about Dave. He really had looked like he was going to pass out, or vomit, or _something_ at any moment, and normally he just looks kind of like a statue, so it was _really extra-special_ worrying that was going on here. You suspect it’s something to do with Terezi, because, well, what else could it be? Nothing else has changed, not recently. John thought it was the fact that it was actually their senior year finally catching up with Dave. 

“He must’ve realized it’s the last year we’ll be in the same school!” he had shouted, gesticulating wildly. 

You don’t think that’s it, because that particular problem won’t rear its ugly head until second semester at least, when you’ve all applied to your separate colleges and what not. No, Dave’s far too good at repressing his feelings to be worrying about that already. 

It has to be Terezi.

But what could she have done? He’d seen her earlier and seemed fine after. It was just at lunch that he’d seemed off. Something must’ve happened between your 3rd period English class with him and lunch. 

Heh, maybe Terezi made him interact with Karkat. That would be enough to make anyone physically ill. 

Wait, what if it was _Karkat?_

What if Karkat _did_ something to Dave? You grip your pencil a little too tight as your skin crawls and your face starts to feel hot. You know he’d hit Dave once, long ago, but that was in _middle school_ , and _everyone_ did stupid things in _middle school_. But Karkat clearly had a temper, and what if he took something out on Dave? It didn’t even have to be physical, words can leave bruises too, and Karkat is not nearly cautious enough with his insults. 

It had to be either Karkat or Terezi, you decide. One of them _did_ something, and you are going to figure out which and make them think seriously about ever doing that again. 

Just as soon as you get out of study hall. 

==> Grab your stuff from your locker.

Of course your proctor didn’t let you out of study hall until five minutes after she was supposed to, because everyone apparently “started packing up too early”, so you lost your chance to talk to Dave between periods. You were nearly late for Calculus as it was. You ran to the bathroom and tried to pester him when you were supposed to be working on a problem set, but he still hadn’t logged back on.

Whatever. He can’t avoid you in person, and there’s absolutely zero chance that he’ll ditch your traditional-first-week-hang-out session. Not to mention it’s your day to pick where to go, so you’ll totally have a chance to pull him aside and make him talk to you. 

Your mood picks up as you slam your locker shut and almost skip out to meet your friends. 

==>

This did not turn out the way you thought it would. 

Dave is nowhere even near you, and far too distracted to even pretend to pay attention to you, John is off getting ice cream, and even Rose is currently utterly distracted, which sucks cause she usually knows when you really need attention, but no, not one of your friends has a spare moment for you.

And it’s all because _they’re_ here. 

Oh yea.

Dave isn’t paying a lick of attention to you, because he is currently attempting to capture a pigeon to prove _something_ , god knows what, to Terezi. Terezi, of course, had caught one within two minutes of your arrival, and proceeded to tie a message to its leg and set it free. Nepeta told you this was standard behavior. Dave, on the other hand, has been at it for almost twenty minutes now, to no success. He and birds don’t get along. It’s a thing.

You guess it hadn’t been such a big deal until John decided to go grab some ice cream. For all that his eyesight royally sucks, his hearing is top notch, and he’d literally leapt to his feet when he heard the ice cream truck. 

Even that had been fine, until Nepeta went with him. You had never regretted making everyone go to the park so much until that exact moment. Not even the time that Dave threw a rock at a wasp nest and you had to leap into the gross scummy pond to escape. 

Because with Rose utterly fascinated by Feferi, that left you completely alone with Karkat Fucking Vantas. 

You’re ignoring each other at the moment. It’s a tense kind of ignoring, the kind where you’re actually perfectly aware of the other person’s every movement, but you’re acting like you’re not paying attention. Only you just know that the other person knows you _are_ paying attention, because you know they are even though they’re also pretending not to. And you’re not looking at one another, but that doesn’t matter because you can just _sense_ them somehow.

It’s unpleasant as fuck. 

You just want to relax! You just want to lean back against a tree and watch Dave chase birds and be glad that Rose finally found someone to talk about her weird religious shit with. You want to close your eyes and feel the grass under your fingers and just breathe, just sit back and relax, because it’s the start of a new school year (your _last_ school year here) and you’re taking too many classes and doing too many things and you can already feel the strings starting to tighten. You know in a month or two you’ll be pulled so tight you won’t even have time to walk Bec, you’ll have to leave that to your little sister, and you’ll have to actively schedule time with your friends to actually be able to see them. You’ve already planned to set aside Friday and Saturday nights for them, but with soccer starting up again you’ll barely see them outside of class, and it’s your _last_ year with them, and god do you need this time to relax right now. You need this time to just **be** , to build up a wall before the stress begins again. 

And instead you’re gripping the blanket underneath you a little too tight and pretending like you’re not incredibly aware of the dickwad next to you. 

You sigh and force your hands to unclench. Maybe if you try hard enough you can relax anyway. 

“Oh my fucking god, just hit me or something already.” Or not.

Your head snaps to look at him as he finally talks. Your surprised gaze meets his irritated one. He’s got one elbow balanced on his bent knee and that hand buried in his hair, and he looks like he’s seriously waiting for the hit. “… What?”

“Just fucking hit me! You’ve got to want to, you’ve probably got a million goddamn reasons you want to drive your fist so hard into my abdomen that I cough up my entire intestinal tract. Or hey, maybe you’re the kind to go for the face, maybe this is finally the day I get my nose re-broken, don’t worry, this time I’ll be sure to let it heal crooked so every time you’re forced to look at my massive fucking disaster of a face, you can at least get a little satisfaction before you have to run off and throw up. Or there’s always the good old standard of the genitals, great place to aim a hit, maximum pain with the chance of guaranteeing that I never further pollute the world with my gross spawn. So many options! So just fucking pick one and throw a goddamn punch before this goddamn tension makes me scratch my own eyes out!” 

You blink once, slowly. 

“How did you get that all out without breathing?”

“Motherfucking practice and some ace lung capacity, smartass,” he sneers at you. 

“God, you’re such an asshole!” You can’t take it, you throw your arms up and just let yourself fall backwards. You can’t fucking deal with this guy.

“No fucking shit.” You watch him out of the corner of your eye as he brings his other knee up and curls himself around them. It’s an odd visual, this big, hulking guy, muscles straining under his shirt, looking like he’s trying to wrap himself up so tight he disappears. “So just throw the fucking punch already. You get one free hit.” He clenches his jaw. “One.” 

You roll your eyes. “Why would I want to hit you?”

“People generally find it easier to be around me after inflicting physical pain. Something about knowing how it feels to punch me makes it easier to stand my shit. Go fucking figure.”

You can’t help the derogatory scoff that escapes you. Not that you were trying to stop it, but you couldn’t’ve if you had been. “Maybe you should put less shit out into the world then, ever think of that?”

“Look Harley, for some godforsaken reason Terezi has decided she likes you jackasses, and if Terezi likes you then I guess I’ll be spending a fucking dumb amount of time with you. You don’t have to like me, in fact that’s probably impossible, most people find it is, hell _I_ find it un-fucking-manageable, but you’re going to have to stand me. So go on, work out some goddamn aggression, make it just dissipate already, because I’m an asshole when I’m at my best, and this goddamn tension isn’t going to help the situation. So throw the fucking punch, 100% guarantee it’ll make you feel better.”

“You could just tell Terezi you don’t like us.”

Now it’s his turn to scoff. “Please, nobody in the fucking multiverse gets attached like Terezi.”

You consider this for a moment, and decide that Dave could probably give her a run for her money, but that doesn’t exactly help the situation either. “ _You_ could always just ditch out.”

This earns you a damn impressive glare. “Like hell I could.” Ooo, that struck a nerve. A little voice that sounds surprisingly like Rose tells you to keep plucking at it. 

“What exactly is Terezi to you, Karkat?” You meet his glare with one of your own.

“My best friend,” he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t think about it, just pops right out with it. 

“Really? Just friends?” Rose would be damned proud of the insinuation you just pumped into your voice there. Really, she’d be tickled pink about it.

Karkat, however, doesn’t flinch. “No, there’s nothing _just_ about it. We’re **best friends**.” You’re a little taken aback by the intensity in his voice. “If you think I’d distance myself from her because she decided you shitstains were her new ‘crew’, you’re dead wrong. She likes me, so clearly her taste in friends is shit, but that just means that I’ve got to put up with some crap. And we are all fully fucking aware that I deserve that, so I’ll deal. I just thought it would be more _pleasant_ for everyone involved if you actually got to work out some of that aggression right at the start. If you’d prefer we can pretend to play some stupid ass sport that you like and you can make it look like an accident.” 

He’s sitting up ramrod straight now, shoulders twisted slightly so he can bring the full force of his glare down on you. It’s … it’s pretty intense. You think maybe you shouldn’t have listened to the Rose voice. You wonder what he’s put up with for Terezi’s sake. 

You swallow, your throat weirdly dry for some reason. And all you can think to say back is: “How did you know I like sports?”

You’ve never seen someone switch so quickly from such intensity to rolled eyes. “Gee, I don’t know, maybe because we go to the same goddamn school and nobody fucking shuts up about your dumbass teams when it’s like high competition season or some shit. Besides, Nepeta wouldn’t shut the fuck up about you after you guys left yesterday.”

You perk up a little bit at that. “Nepeta was telling you about me?”

“Apparently she’s gotten attached too, for some reason.”

You nod slowly, and bite you lip. An awkward silence falls. Finally, you say, “I’m not going to hit you.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“If you want to cut the tension, Karkat, I suggest you start by being _nice_ , not by creating excuses to continue acting like an asshole.”

“But I _am_ an asshole!”

“Don’t you think you should change that!?”

“First of all, _Harley_ ,” you swear he actually _snarls_ your name, “who the fuck are you to storm into my life and tell me how to fucking behave? You’ve talked to me a grand total of two times, congratu-fucking-lations, apparently that gives you the ‘offering my opinion when it isn’t fucking wanted’ badge! You’ve got **no goddamn right**! Secondly, reality check here, _everyone_ is an asshole. I’m an asshole, Strider’s a dick, Terezi’s a goddamn bitch, and I say that as someone who would walk through goddamn fire for her.”

“God, can’t you even try to be nice? Just for like five fucking seconds Karkat, just try to actually be a decent person!” 

“Karkles, everything okay over here?” And all of a sudden Terezi is there, standing over the two of you, hand on hip and foot tapping.

“Yeah, _Karkles_ , everything chill?” Dave suddenly appears crouched next to Karkat, face very close and patented blank look in place. 

Karkat whips his head around suddenly, coming eye to lens with Dave’s shades. Karkat has a near goddamn heart attack, as far as you can tell, sputtering and scrambling blindly backwards. Unfortunately this lands him directly on top of you, rather heavily. His elbow smashes into your side and your knee cracks him on the head. You both simultaneously hiss in pain.

“Oh my god, Jade!” John, apparently back from grabbing ice cream, runs over to you. “Are you okay?”

“Jade! Karkitty!” Nepeta is, of course, in close pursuit. “What happened?”

“What happened was that Stri-douche over here decided that personal space was fucking optional! What the fuck, Strider!?” Karkat yells, clutching the back of his head.

“Didn’t know you’d freak the fuck out over a little game of peekaboo, _Karkitty_.” Dave moves to your side. “You okay, Harls?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine, really guys!” You laugh it off, sitting up and poking at your knee a little. “Though my knee’s stinging like a bitch. Karkat’s skull must be really thick.” It’s not exactly an insult, but it’s the best you can do while your nerve endings in your knee sing out in pain. Ugh, nerve endings suck. 

“Not like your pointy knee is any goddamn better, Harley.” Karkat winces as Terezi prods at the back of his head, feeling for a lump you guess, though it wouldn’t be there till later. 

“Oh hush you two,” Nepeta commands. “I’m just glad neither of you are hurt!”

“Nepeta, we’re both fucking hurt – “

“Oh please. No one’s even bleeding, you’re both fine. And to make all your boo-boos better,” Nepeta coos at Karkat, obviously mocking, to which she gets a very prominent middle finger, “we have ice cream!” 

Karkat grumbles but gives up the conversation once he gets his weird twisty popsicle thing. You, like any sensible human being, asked for an ice cream sandwich. Karkat’s is still better than John’s and Dave’s however, because John and Dave always go for the weird face popsicles of cartoon characters, with the gumball eyes and all. Today, John has a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and Dave is munching on the creepiest Dora the Explorer you have ever seen. 

It takes you a while to realize, but at some point it dawns on you that the ever-present tension has faded a bit. You think you realize when you laugh at some snarky comment Karkat makes to John. Huh. Weird. You wonder if maybe Karkat’s theory about putting him in physical pain making him more tolerable is actually correct. 

(You later decide that no, it is in fact being around his friends that makes Karkat more tolerable, because he acts much nicer around them. You plan to tell him this the next time you’re left alone with him, which hopefully won’t be any time soon.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update in honor of 4/13! I'm like 5 min late, whatever.
> 
> Also, uh, I thought I should add to this that I've started up an Etsy store, check out my author description thing for details. I'm trying to make some spare money so I can do things like go to cons and cosplay and stuff, so you should check it out. Not a lot of stuff in it yet, but it'll get bigger soon. Also if you want a writing commission or a knitting commission or something, send me a message (preferably on tumblr or via email). Sorry for the self promo here, really would like to have con money tho.
> 
> Anyway, sorry updates take so long, finally finished up a major show that took up all of my time. I'll probably actually update faster now! Yay!


	7. John: Watch the clouds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So the hyperlink in the text now works, but I can't get it to open in a new tab, so you'll have to arrange for that yourselves still. Sorry. Also sorry this is so late, but seeing as how that is a continuing theme, I'm just going to stop apologizing for it.

You lost about a quarter of your TMNT popsicle down the front of your shirt, and you’re not sure the stains from the dye will come out no matter how hard your dad scrubs, but you don’t care. You’re warm and full and chewing two gumball eyes and Jade is letting you use her as a pillow and everything seems right with the world. You’re cloud watching, which is always part of the deal with this day. Jade’s actually watching and identifying all the cloud types, which you all learned like back in 3rd grade but she’s the only one who remembers. You always just look for shapes. Dave looks for dicks, as is his custom. Rose, for now, is just quiet. She’s laying at your side, her head on your shoulder because your stomach is too sticky from the remains of the popsicle. Your head is sharing Jade’s stomach with Dave. 

You are totally relaxed and absolutely happy. It’s possibly the last time you’ll ever do this together and you are determined to enjoy yourself. And okay, so it’s not the same way you usually do it, because you can hear Nepeta giggling and Karkat grumbling in the background, but they’ve left you four alone for now. Terezi was going to lean on Dave and join you, but Karkat called her away to talk about something. You’re glad, because this is you and Rose and Jade and Dave’s thing and, frankly, not Terezi’s. And like you said, it might be the last time the four of you get to do this together and it’s not really something you wanted anyone else to participate in. Thank god it turns out Karkat is the clingy kind of friend and doesn’t like you hanging out with his friends either. 

“Oooo! That one looks like a bunny!” You’ve been looking for a bunny shaped cloud this whole time and you’re super excited to find one. 

“Nah dude, that’s totally a dick.” 

“How the fuck is that a dick, Dave? It’s clearly a bunny, see the two ears?”

“No, see, the main part there is the balls and then the ears are the shaft.”

“Dave, there are two ears,” Jade scoffs. 

“Yeah man, two dicks.”

“But there’s only one set of balls!” You exclaim. You hear someone choking in the distance and realize that might have been louder than you thought. Your ears burn a bit, but whatever.

“Nah man, like it’s a bifurcated dick. Two dicks, one dude.”

“That’s a stretch even by your standards, Dave,” Rose says calmly. “And you have gone rather far in your attempts to see floating penises in the sky.”

“It’s a bunny, guys. It’s just a friendly little bunny. There are no dicks in the sky,” you say, hoping to move on. You don’t want to even think about bifurcated dicks, it sounds super painful. 

“Whatever you need to tell yourself, dude.” You can actually hear Dave’s smirk in his voice. Ugh, he so sucks. You try to reach up and muss his hair, but he grabs your hand without even looking at you. You try using the other hand and he grabs that one too. You start to struggle.

“If you two are going to fight, take it elsewhere,” Jade commands. “You are literally right on top of me, and I am not getting an elbow to the stomach _again_.”

You relax your arms and Dave lets go. You’re both too comfortable to move at the moment. 

You stay like that for at least another ten minutes, just lying there with your best friends in the whole world. You spot clouds that look like elephants and hats and birds and one that actually does look like a giant floating dick, which pleases Dave to no end. This, of course, means that Rose has to start to antagonize him with faux psychoanalysis. You close your eyes and start to doze a little as Rose prods and Dave bristles. 

Everything is right in the world.

==> [S]<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWlt8AqZtFk>

Hm?

What’s that?

Strains of guitar music and humming slowly filter into your consciousness. It takes a while for you to fully process this, for a couple reasons. For one, you’re kinda sleepy. Jade’s stomach is this wonderful mix of soft and hard and warm, and the sun is even more wonderful than that. You can feel Jade’s breath beneath you, Rose’s weight pressed against your side, and Dave’s hair, the breeze mussing it for you, is flicking against your forehead. Cozied up with all your friends like this, with the sun and the breeze, you’re surprised you’re not asleep already. For two, it’s not unusual to hear guitar music in the park, although it is a lot closer than usual. 

The music sounds vaguely sound familiar, but it’s only when you recognize the lyrics and the _voice_ that you sit up, an incredulous smile making its way onto your face. 

“Of all the girls tossing rocks at your window,”

No way. 

“I’ll be the one waiting there even when it’s cold.”

No freaking way. 

“Hey Stephen, boy, you might have me believin’ I don’t always have to be alone.”

This has got to be some kind of dream. Some kind of really awesome dream. 

“Cause I can’t help it if you look like an angel, can’t help it if I want to kiss you in the rain so,” sings Karkat as he plays a guitar that you swear he didn’t have with him before. “Come feel this magic I’ve been feeling since I met, can’t help it if there’s no one else. Mmm, can’t help myself.” You can’t help the giggle that escapes you. You wish you could call it a chuckle, as that sounds much more manly and dignified, but it’s definitely a giggle, a fairly high pitched one too. Karkat turns his head slightly and glares at you. You get the feeling that if he had a hand free he’d be flipping you off. You just smile wider. 

“Oh my god,” you hear the smile in Jade’s voice, and the barely contained laughter. 

“Hey Stephen, I’ve been holding back this feeling, so I got some things to say to you,” Karkat turns his head away, clearly ignoring you. He’s sitting cross legged, strumming the guitar as the song demands, with a giggling Nepeta draped across his back. Terezi is laying on her stomach a little ways away, head propped up on her hands. Her maniac grin tells you that you probably owe this wondrous experience to her. Feferi is leaning against a nearby tree, her face caught between sympathetic and trying-desperately-not-to-laugh. “I’ve seen it all, so I thought, but I’ve never seen nobody shine the way you do. The way you talk, way you walk, way you say my name, it’s beautiful, wonderful, don’t you ever change. Hey Stephen why are people always leaving? I think you and I should stay the same.” You hear flat out laughter and glance up to see you’re-90%-sure-it’s-Aradia losing it, sitting up in the tree above Feferi. Oh! That must be how Karkat got the guitar! You wonder when she got here, because she definitely wasn’t here before.

You switch you attention back to Karkat, because, to be honest, it’s hard to look away. He’s just – he’s this big, hulking dude. Like, you think he’s gotta be like taller than you, and you’re six foot, only he slouches like all the time, so you actually have no clue how tall he is. But you know he’s muscled as fuck, cause you were up close and personal with him yesterday when he was seeing if you had a concussion, and _damn_ his arms were huge. And he always wears these dark sweatshirts and baggy black jeans, and right now his scowl is worse than usual, and his usual scowl has probably made people cry. And he’s just sitting there, with adorable Nepeta draped over his back, playing _Taylor Swift_ of all things. And he doesn’t look super happy about it, like his eyebrows are knotted together more than usual, and the little lines in his forehead are bigger. Even the bags under his eyes look deeper and darker and you’d swear, if the sound was off, if this was a movie on mute, that he was playing something really angry, or sad, or deep, or all of that. 

But he’s playing Taylor Swift. 

And then you’re laughing, loud and clear, the warmth and happiness and _joy_ of the day tumbling from your lips, because this is adorable, this is amazing, because here’s this _terrifying guy_ , the kind of guy who could beat you within an inch of your life, the kind of guy who two days ago you would’ve said probably had done that to someone, this really scary kind of guy, singing Taylor Swift songs to his friends. Taylor Swift songs that he clearly knows by heart. And you don’t know if he learned them for his friends, on a dare, or just for himself, and suddenly you really want to know. You have to know if he knows more, if maybe he knows her whole albums, and why he learned them, how he learned them. Does he own Taylor Swift sheet music, or can he play it by ear? 

You’ve never looked very closely at Karkat Vantas before, he’s never been in your world, but all of a sudden he is, and all of sudden he’s not just some freaky dude, he’s a puzzle. He’s an enigma, because what kind of guy wears all grey and black (seriously you’ve never seen him in any color, ever, you’ve never even seen him wearing white) and scowls and hulks and knows the lyrics to Hey Stephen by heart and is at the center of this weird group of friends (weirder than yours, and that’s saying something) and plays it for them in public parks, in front of virtual strangers who could tell everyone at school about this if they wanted to. And instead of blushing, or hiding, or refusing, he looks (glares) those strangers straight in the eyes, and dares them to say anything about it. 

“Hey Stephen, I can give you fifty reasons why I should be the one choose,” he sings, and you think he must be down an octave from her, because no way she sings this deep. “All those other girls, yeah they’re beautiful, but would they sing a song for you?” And he notices you staring again, looks over to your group, and fucking winks. He winks! Oh my god, this guy looks you straight in the eye and winks, and somehow it feels more like a dare than flirting, like he’s daring you to say something. And you don’t really know how a wink does that, but somehow Karkat’s wink does. 

You decide right then that yeah, Karkat’s going to be your friend. Definitely. There’s nothing that can be done about it now. It’s been decided. 

“Mmm, can’t help myself, if you look like an angel, can’t help if I want to kiss you in the rain so. Come feel this magic I’ve been feeling since I met you, can’t help if there’s no one else! Mmm, can’t help myself,” he’s still singing, pointedly ignoring both yours and Feferi’s laughter, which you realize you must have caused. It’s always harder to keep from laughing when someone already is. But his face is smoother somehow, the lines not quite so dramatic. He looks … happier, you think. And you’re still watching almost incredulously as he glances over at Feferi, and you can see his smile. You mean, he’s not smiling, not really, he’s still scowling and humming out the final lines, but you can see it in his eyes. The smile he’s not smiling. It’s the smile you see in the twitch at the corner of Dave’s mouth, and in Rose’s raised eyebrows. It’s the kind of smile that you and Jade just smile, but that you have to look for in others, that you’ve been taught to look for. And you see it now, in Karkat’s scowl and his dark eyes and the last strains of the guitar. And you want him to smile like that for you, because you’ve only known him one day, but you know that his exasperation with you is real. That the scowl he scowls at you and the scowl he scowls at his family are so fundamentally different, and you want to know what it’s like to get the second one. Because you get the feeling that it feels like winning your favorite video game, or maybe that it just feels like winning in general. 

Heh, maybe it feels like beating Sollux at Mario Kart. That’s also something you’re going to have to do, you decide. You’re going to do it, and you’re going to rub it in Karkat’s face and he’s going to scowl that scowl at you and you’re going to be _best friends_.

You’ve decided. 

And so you smile extra wide at him as you make your way over, planning to bug him until he tells you how many Taylor Swift songs he knows.


	8. Dave: Crush on Karkat

This guy is not making this whole crush thing easy on you. 

It was easier when he was just a jerk. Hell, you didn’t have a crush when he was a jerk. Sure, you checked his ass out sometimes, but it was like 90% ironic and 10% he was really hot. Cause, like, you can kinda hate someone and still think they’re hot. That’s totally a thing. 

But you can’t really kinda hate someone and _like_ them too. The hate and the like have to balance out, right? One has to be higher than the other, right? And when he was just a jerk, when all you knew about him was that he smoked when he was like thirteen and he punched you in the dick that one time and he was mean to Jade, the hate was all there was. Cause who wouldn’t hate someone who was mean to Jade? Like, seriously. 

But now … 

…

Well, now you still kind hate him for that stuff. Because, seriously, _he was mean to Jade_. And not just one time, like he was to you, for like a _whole year_. He ruined that class for her, and you know that because at least once a week she would complain about it to you over Pesterchum. You mean, it wasn’t a big enough deal for her to like actually complain in person, but when she was at home, in the middle of doing homework, with the class on her mind and the computer at her fingertips …

So yeah, you’re still not over that. You kind of hope you’ll never be over that because there is very little else keeping you from flinging yourself at him lips first. 

Cause, see, yeah he was a _dick_ to Jade, but –

“ _Oh my fucking god Egbert, if you ask me even one more goddamn question I am going to rip your tongue out of your mouth and carefully shred it with my bare hands, then fling it like a fistful of confetti at your face to celebrate the fact that you can no longer speak in any comprehensible language. And when you inevitably try to get your revenge by spewing utter fucking gibberish at me twenty-four seven, I will shove my fist down your throat, grab your vocal chords, and yank until I’ll never have to hear your goddamn voice again._ ”

“Is it, like, all your practice singing that makes you able to say so many words without having to breathe?”

“Other way around dipshit.”

“Yeah, Karkles’s always been pretty wordy,” Terezi contributes from her place wrapped around Karkat’s back. She’s practicing French braiding on him, for some reason, despite the fact that his hair’s too short for it. She thought about trying yours, but decided there was too much product in it.

“Oh my god, you have to tell me what baby Karkat was like!” John practically squeals in excitement.

“How is it that I have a rock steadily trying to work its way up my ass because Terezi won’t let me fucking move and you are still the most annoying thing in my life right now?”

“Why, Karkles, are you saying you like rocks up your bubble butt?”

“Compared to Egbert?”

“So you’re saying you prefer rocks up your ass to Egbert up your ass?” You couldn’t resist. He was leaving it wide open.

He levels an unimpressed glare at you. It somehow manages to say ‘I-won’t-dignify-that-with-a-verbal-response-but-still-know-that-I-hate-you-both-for-that-and-also-just-in-general’. Damn, even that boy’s glares are wordy.

“Daaaaveee grooooossssss,” John feels the need to add as he punches you in the shoulder.

“Hey, man, I don’t know the dude’s kinks.”

“Strider, I’d tell you to go eat the biggest, smelliest dick in the world, but I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to fully self-cannibalize, and the only thing more disgusting than you right now would be a half-eaten you lying around bleeding everywhere.”

“Do you think a lot about my dick, _Karkles_? I promise you it’s just as monstrous as you imagine.” Karkat looks like he’s about to burst a vein. God you wish he actually thought about your dick. Like maybe he’s been fantasizing about it ever since he punched you in it. And yes, you understand that that is a really fucking weird thing to hope for.

This boy is going to kill you.

And if you keep antagonizing him, he might literally kill you too.

Jade is giving you a really weird look. Great. That conversation’s gonna be fun.

“ **Strider, I swear to fucking god -** ”

“No fighting, Karcrab!” Feferi makes her way back from the little glade she was taking a phone call in. She slaps Karkat on the head lightly when he turns his glare on her. “Anyway, sorry everyone, but Karkat and I have to go.”

“Did something happen?” Nepeta asks, worriedly.

“Eridan’s first swim meet of the year is just wrapping up, so we’re going to take him out for ice cream to celebrate!”

“Oh shit, I totally forgot.” Karkat motions for Terezi to get off his back. She does so reluctantly, and makes a face when he runs his hands through his hair and destroys all her hard work.

“Rude, Karkles, just rude.”

“Don’t give a fuck, Terezi. Find someone else to torture.” He walks over to the tree where you’d all dumped your stuff and begins to extricate his backpack from the pile. You take a moment to admire his ass. Damn you love his ass. 

“How is braiding hair torture?” You can hear in Jade’s voice that the face she’s making is just fantastic, but you can’t tear your eyes away from Karkat’s ass to look. His bag is at the very bottom of the pile, and the view is great.

“Oh, no, you’re right, Harley. Having Terezi yank your hair around as she tries to decode the mystery that is French braiding is just so fuckin pleasant.” He finds his backpack, and slings it over both shoulders like a total dork. Everyone knows that you have to leave one strap hanging off. Not even John double straps anymore. “Let’s go, if we’re late we’ll never hear the end of it.” He leads Feferi off towards the bus stop as she waves goodbye. A clump of trees hides them from sight fairly quickly. \

“So, wait, which one is Eridan?” John asks

“Long scarf, purple streak in his hair, total douchebag,” supplies Aradia, helpfully. She’s tuning her guitar now. She’s even doing it by ear which is pretty damn impressive.

“Wait, did we meet him?” John asks. He’s not the greatest at remembering faces. Or names. Or people. Or things, to be honest.

“He’s the one Karkat rushed into his bedroom and whispered to for twenty minutes, remember?” Rose, as always, on point with the insinuations.

“Oh, right, him!” You roll your eyes.

“John, dude, it’s okay. You were a little distracted, you don’t have to pretend to remember him,” you deadpan. John blushes and mumbles something about totally remembering him, what are you talking about, and so on and so forth. “What was up with all that shit anyway?”

Predictably, they all go kind of shifty-eyed and refuse to acknowledge the question. They did that yesterday too, eventually informing you that it basically was none of your business. This time they just change the subject.

“So how do you think Eridan’s first day as captain went?” Nepeta asks, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Oh, they all hate him already, I’m sure,” Aradia says, off-handedly. “The real interesting question is what happened with Eridan and Karkat over the summer.”

There’s an implication in her voice that has your full attention on her faster than you can blink.

“Now you _know_ it isn’t like that,” Nepeta rebuffs. “Besides, no way Eridan is over Feferi. Uh-uh, never gonna happen. Right, Terezi?”

You wonder for a second about how these people are sharing supposedly intimate secrets of Eridan’s with practical strangers, but they won’t tell you what caused that whole scene yesterday. That is, you wonder until you realize that Terezi is looking directly at you, her unseeing gaze pinning you and her nostrils flaring. There’s a strange intensity to it that scares you for just a moment. 

“Weelllll,” she draws out the word as your attention narrows entirely to her, “Eridan did spend practically the whole summer with Karkles.” She pauses, the same implication hanging in the air, teasing you, and you don’t know if you’re supposed to hope or not. “But I don’t think Eridan is really Karkat’s _type_.”

…

What the fuck does that mean?

No, really what does that mean? What part of him isn’t Karkat’s type? His personality? His douche-y scarf?

His gender?

…

_What the fuck does that mean?_

Terezi’s still just staring at you, this weird knowing grin on her face, _and you don’t know what it means_.

“Well, he’s certainly not Feferi’s type!” says Aradia, jolting you out of whatever weird thing was going on between you and Terezi. She’s laughing, like the very idea of Eridan and Feferi is just hilarious.

You can feel Jade’s eyes trying to basically read your mind, to figure out what all that was about.

(You’re kind of surprised you can’t feel Rose’s, but she’s apparently trying to share some kind of meaningful look with John, which is going about as well as you’d think.)

“Hey!” Nepeta shoves her shoulder, “You don’t know that! I think they’d be very cute together.”

“Nope. No way. Waaaay too much history,” Aradia says dismissively.

“Besides,” Terezi says as she stands and dusts herself off, “we all know who Feferi’s interested in.” This carries more meaning for the other two than for any of you. You glance around to make sure your friends are as confused as you are. They are.

“Yeah,” sighs Aradia, as she too stands. “This year’s just gonna be mess, isn’t it?” she asks, grinning.

“Yup,” Nepeta pops the ‘p’ as she accepts Terezi’s outstretched hand and joins the standing. 

“Where are you guys going?” Jade asks, looking a little disappointed.

“Sorry, but I promised Equius I’d meet him when his club got out, and I’m already a little late,” Nepeta shoots Jade an apologetic look. 

“And I’m her ride over there, not to mention I’ve gotta meet Sollux.” Aradia saunters over to the bags, plucking hers off the top, guitar in its case, slung across her back.

“And that means I can steal a free ride to go see how everyone’s second day was,” Terezi’s grin somehow made that seem threatening. “Besides, you probably want some time alone to gossip about us,” she throws over her shoulder as she too grabs her bag.

“Bye Jade!” Nepeta waves enthusiastically as the three of them head towards the car park. Jade waves back just as enthusiastically.

“See ya, cool kid.” Terezi ruffles your hair as she passes. You flip her off, even though she can’t see it. It’s the thought that counts.

Soon enough, they’re out of sight, and it’s just the four of you.

“Wow, it must be exhausting to have more than three friends,” John blurts out suddenly. “I mean, can you imagine having to hear nine different first day of school stories?”

“I know right! God!” Jade collapses backward onto the grass. “And having to try and get nine people altogether in one place? Ugh!”

“It does seem logistically complicated,” Rose says.

“So. What now?” Everything seems sort of done now that they’re gone. Normally you’re at the park for hours the second day, just hanging out, but now it seems a little boring without Terezi’s crew. 

Everyone seems lost for a moment.

“We could go over to John’s and play some video games?” Jade offers, eventually.

You all just kind of shrug, and grab your stuff. Video games it is.

==> Some hours later…

You’re refilling the chip bowl when Jade corners you in the kitchen.

“What was all that about earlier?” Jade demands, blocking your only exit. 

You’d kind of hoped that this conversation could be postponed. In fact, you still hope that. “Well, you see Jade, Egbert was camping, which is a bullshit tactic – “

“You know what I mean, Dave!” Uuuuuugggghhhhhhh. 

“No I don’t.” Okay, so you _know_ Jade isn’t going to buy that, but still, might as well try. 

“Bullshit.” Oh, great, now she’s mad. “I’m talking about all that stuff with Terezi. And Karkat. And don’t think I didn’t notice you checking out his ass!” Shit. 

“Shit, man, can’t a guy just appreciate another guy’s ass without it being a big fucking deal?” You’re trying to edge past her, but she’s just not letting up. Goddamn it.

“Dave, look at me.” Oh no. Not the quiet-but-firm tone. That’s not fair. That’s cheating.

You look at her.

“Do you like Karkat?”

Do you? That’s the question, isn’t it? Like, yeah, he’s clearly ridiculously attractive. But he’s an asshole.

Right?

And that matters, right?

Doesn’t it?

Because, yeah, he’s attractive, and he’s clearly fiercely loyal to his friends, and he actually, totally unironically, _likes_ Ke$ha, and he’s a fucking mother-hen, which no one would have ever called looking at him, and he double-straps his backpack, and he’s so much fun to get riled up, because he gets riled up so easily, because he wears every goddamn emotion on his sleeve for all the world to see, and he’s so different from who you thought he was, while somehow still being exactly who you thought he was, and all you can think about is that moment in the quad with the sun and his smile, the only time you’ve ever seen him smile, and that incredibly deep emotion you saw – 

But he’s an asshole.

So you can’t like him. You can’t.

“Do you think he’s gay?” you blurt out before your brain catches up to your mouth.

“Dave,” Jade’s eyes are soft and her voice is gentle, and you hate the pity there, you hate it so much, “he’s such an asshole.”

“Yeah. I know.” And you let her wrap her arms around you, the chip bowl still clasped in your hands keeping her from getting too close.

“Don’t let him hurt you.” Her voice is muffled in your neck and shirt. You shrug the shoulder that she isn’t leaning her head on.

“Do you think he’s gay?” you ask, quieter this time, thinking of the way Terezi looked at you, thinking of Eridan, and of Karkat in the sun.

“I don’t know,” she says, even quieter than you. “I just don’t know.”

You close your eyes and try not to think at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How have I not updated since June? How is that possible? Sorry guys, I'm the worst.


	9. John: Commence Operation Befriend Karkat

The next two days fly by, as teachers assign more homework than is at all reasonable and you neglect it to hang out with your friends instead. Dave chooses to do what he always does, which is pile you guys into his kinda shitty car to drive the half hour to his apartment that you guys rarely travel. It’s just that you’re all here and he’s the only one over there, so it never makes sense to hang out at his place. But at least once a year he drags you out there, which you guess is fair. Anyway, Terezi refused to join, so it was just you guys then. And then yesterday Rose did her ‘haha-not-telling-you-where-we’re-going-for-my-day’ thing that she does every year (it was spelunking in a creepy, horror-movie-y cave this year), so Terezi and crew weren’t even invited. 

Sadly, you have made no progress on Operation Befriend Karkat since Tuesday because of this. You keep trying to invite him to sit with you at lunch, but he’s never at lunch. You think he’s been at lunch in the past, like last year and stuff, but you guess you can’t really remember. You wonder where he eats, if not in the cafeteria. Dave suggested that he sits in a bathroom stall ‘like a goddamn stereotype’, but you think Jade’s suggestion that he’s hanging out in an empty classroom is more likely. You asked Terezi, but she just gave you this really creepy smile, so you dropped it. That girl is weird.

But today is Friday, and you are determined to actually take a step forward on this whole friendship thing. There’s this party tomorrow, a first week of school thing, and you’re going to invite their whole crew. Not just Karkat, Terezi, and Nepeta, but all the others too. You figure coming as a group will make them more comfortable. 

The party’s at Rose’s house this year, because she’s got this giant house out in the woods and a mom who’s cool enough to prefer her getting drunk there rather than anywhere else. There’s a first week of school party every year, but the guy who’d hosted it every year you’d been in high school graduated last year, and so for weeks before school started everyone had been trying to throw Rose not-so-subtle hints on Facebook. Finally she’d caved. 

So you’re extra bouncy as you walk into school, sort of jittery and excited and full of life. You just know that they’ll agree to go, and then you’ll get to know the whole group!

“Bro, it’s eight in the goddamn morning,” Dave says as he sidles along next to you. “Stop with the whole … _energy_ thing.” Even behind his shades you can see the bags under his eyes, and you can definitely see the industrial sized cup of coffee he’s carrying. Poor dude. 

“That whole spelunking thing kept you up all night, didn’t it?” You wince sympathetically. “It was pretty creepy.”

He gives you a look that is somehow more deadpan that usual. “Dude, not even remotely.”

“It’s okay, you can be honest with me,” you insist. “I won’t make fun of you. Matter of fact, I had some bad dreams last night too.”

“Jade!” he calls over your shoulder. You turn to see Jade running up to you, waving. She’s been here since way earlier than the two of you, she’s got soccer practice before school. She’s just coming off the field now, still in her practice clothes. “Remind Egbert here that I spend my summers studying archeology, would ya? He seems to think I’m still afraid of creepy-cralwies.” 

Jade just starts laughing at you. 

You flush. “What? It’s a scary, creepy cave! If this were a movie, we’d have all stumbled into some kind of curse thing, like accidentally awakening an ancient evil spirit that follows us around and kills us off one by one in weirder and weirder ways!” It absolutely gave off that feel. It was a _really_ creepy cave.

“Dude, you’re the one afraid of the cave, not me.” Dave claps you on the shoulder, and picks up his pace towards the school. 

“What? No! You – you’re the scared one! It’s you! Daaaavveeee!” You yell after him, before running to catch up, leaving a laughing Jade behind. 

 

“Hey, hey, Karkat, wait up!” You’re sort of running after him because wow this guy walks fast, and his legs are longer than yours, but you’re catching up anyway. 

“Egbert, I’ve got places to be, abuse my eardrums later,” he sneers as he powerwalks down the hallway. But he doesn’t speed up. 

(You know he secretly wants to be your friend too. Terezi had said he was a friendly guy, through all the snark and anger and stuff.)

“I just – wanted to invite you – to this party,” you huff. Okay, so you’re a little out of shape. Not everyone can be like Jade or – you glance at Karkat’s _really broad shoulders_ \- or Karkat. 

“Nepeta’s already invited herself, which means I’ll be dragged along by my ears whether I like it or not. I do not, by the way, so there will be a fair amount of kicking and screaming and sulking, and until I ruin the party for everyone and they regret bringing me. Because that’s what I do.” How is he not huffing and puffing like you? He’s talking more than you! Ugh, you hate people who’re in shape.

“Great! I’ll see you there!” You shoot him your widest, brightest smile. He glances at you for the first time this whole conversation, this look of surprise cutting through the bitter scowl for a moment. You watch him blink. 

“Wait, why are you _inviting_ me?” He actually slows down his powerwalk (thank god) to examine you a bit more closely. “You’re not fucking planning on Carrie-ing me, are you? Because I swear, I may not have psychic powers, but that move will still get you just as dead, trust me.”

“What? No!” You shake your head vigorously back and forth until it gives you a bit of a headache. “No, I just thought it’d be cool to hang out will all of you guys again! Like, Dave and Terezi are so clearly like in love with each other, so it’d be nice to know all of Terezi’s friends, you know?” He scowls at that as he picks up speed again and pushes open the front doors of the school, exiting the halls into the bright sun. Okay, so maybe bringing that up wasn’t your smartest move, but you’re like 98% sure that Karkat and Terezi are just friends! You rush onward, hoping to cover that slip. “Plus, you’re a pretty cool guy, you know, and I think it’d be great if we could be friends! It’s always nice to have more friends, and – “ You slam into Karkat’s back.

The force of your collision knocks you to the ground, and you hiss as you scrape your hand while catching yourself. Karkat doesn’t react, he just stands there, stock still. 

Did you piss him off even more? You scramble up, and are about to start trying damage control, when you realize he’s looking at someone. Karkat is standing there, shock all over his face, staring at a man in a red sweater. 

You have no clue what’s going on.

The man is across the street from the school, standing on the curb. He stares back at Karkat for a moment, before suddenly striding across the road. 

Karkat doesn’t move, doesn’t react, face blank and fists clenched.

You feel like you should say something, should do something, because even you can feel this tension building, and you want to break it, but you can’t think of what to say. As you draw breath to start babbling about the party again, the man reaches your side of the road.

“Karkat,” he says, loudly, as he continues to walk towards him. “I fully understand that this is breaking the rules, but I am completely justified in doing so, as you will not reply to my emails, and you hang up on me every time I call.” He’s within ten feet now. “You must be aware of the situation by now, it is despicable of you to ignore it, and you do not have much time –“ And then suddenly Karkat’s moving, taking two big steps to cover the remaining ground, his arm swinging up and decking the red sweater guy right in the face. 

The man goes down, fast and hard, nose bleeding everywhere and probably broken. Suddenly people are paying attention; people who had been hurrying to lunch or just hanging out on the steps are stopping, staring, starting to form a crowd. Karkat is breathing heavily, fists still clenched, when towering above the man whose blood matches his sweater. And then Karkat kicks him in the nuts. 

The man curls up into a ball, unsure now of where to place his hands, unsure which injury hurts more. Everyone in the vicinity winces in sympathy, and most people start sending disbelieving glares Karkat’s directions, as you just stand and stare and gape. 

You’re still gaping when a teacher runs over, yelling at someone to go get the school nurse, and then yelling at Karkat, listing off rules about fighting on school property. Karkat just stands there, looking anywhere but at the man. His eyes meet yours for a second, and all you can think is _scared_.

Not that you’re scared of him! No, that he’s scared. Or sad. Or – or vulnerable, yes that’s the word, vulnerable. He looks shattered. And you’d have to meet his eyes to see it, because everything else about him is locked into tense, harsh lines. Protecting himself, you realize. Bracing for a hit. 

You reach out to him, but then the school nurse is there, with a wheelchair for the man, and two teachers are leading Karkat away to the principal’s office. He doesn’t glance back at you, just walks away with his escort.

_Terezi_ , you think, but it takes a moment for your brain to reach the rest of your body. “Terezi!” you yell to yourself, turning now and running towards the cafeteria. You have no idea what just happened, it happened so quickly, but you know that Terezi should know about it. Somehow, you know that, because Terezi is the only person you can think of who could get that look out of Karkat’s eyes. 

You reach the cafeteria faster than you thought you would, adrenaline making everything a little faster and brighter. She’s already there, sitting at your table, trying to steal some of Dave’s chips. You want to run to them, but crossing the stream of people at the height of lunch hour is hard enough when you’re walking, and you don’t need to be distracted by knocking over someone’s tray. So you try to dodge your way around people, hopping from foot to foot and stopping and starting, until what feels like ages later you finally make it to her. 

“Terezi!” You call out, and her head snaps up in your direction. So does everyone else’s in the near vicinity, but that’s not important right now. “Terezi, Karkat - there was this guy and he was wearing this sweater and –“ Terezi bolts up out of her seat and is dragging you back out of the cafeteria before you can get another word out, which is strange, because you hadn’t even gotten to the shocking part of the story yet. “Terezi –“

“Shut up and let’s go,” she snarls at you, actually _snarls_ , as she pulls you away from the shocked faces of your friends. You can’t help but notice that even though she’s only been at this school for a one week, the crowd of the cafeteria already parts as everybody gets the hell out of her way. That has never once happened to you. 

Once she gets you outside the cafeteria, she releases her grip on your wrist, only to link arms with you instead. 

“Take me to the principal’s office,” she demands, and you remember Karkat and _his face_ , and you decide that now isn’t the time for questions. You lead her there as fast as you can, glancing at her tight face along the way. It occurs to you when you arrive that you still hadn’t told her that Karkat was here. She’d known. She’d known the moment you said ‘sweater.’ You wonder about this as you guide her to the secretary’s desk.

“Where’s Karkat Vantas?” she asks, her tone so professional that even the secretary has to blink away his surprise. 

“Um – I’m not supposed to –“ the secretary starts, but Terezi isn’t having any argument.

“He was brought here to talk to principal a short time ago, and I need to know if he’s still here.”

Before the secretary can start to respond, the door of the office opens, and Karkat himself emerges. The fear in his face has been replaced by a blank anger, and you don’t know if that’s better or worse. “Karkat!” you call out in surprise, and Terezi whirls in the direction of the door. 

Karkat’s face wavers for a second when he sees her, from anger to something you can’t identify, before the rage slips firmly back into place. Terezi opens her mouth to say something, but Karkat cuts her off before she can get anything out. “I’m going home,” he spits, before storming out of the office. You start to chase after him, wanting to know what’s going on, if he’s okay, but Terezi uses your still linked arms to stop you. 

“What was that for?” you ask, but you shut up when you see how cold and hard her face is. 

“He needs to be alone right now,” she announces, in a tone that brooks no argument. She takes a deep shuddering breath before leading the both of you out of the office. 

You only make it just around the corner of the hallway before she stops abruptly. Her eyes are clenched shut and you can feel her practically shaking next to you. You don’t know whether you should try to comfort her or not, because she looks like she’s about to burst or fall apart or something. 

You hear footsteps running down the hall, and look up to see Nepeta running towards the two of you, with Dave, Rose, and Jade following behind. 

“Terezi!” she calls out as she gets closer. “What happened? Is Karkat okay? Did he really see Kan-“

“He’s fine,” Terezi says firmly, cutting Nepeta off. “He’s been sent home.”

“What happened?” Nepeta is close enough now to grab Terezi’s hand, which you now see is clenched into a fist, and stroke it, trying to get Terezi to relax. 

Terezi stiffens more, if that’s possible, before drawing a shuddering breath and forcing herself to relax slightly. “I don’t know,” she murmurs, before turning towards you. “Tell me everything.” 

You blink for a moment, before realizing that you still haven’t recounted the events outside the school. “Oh! There was this guy in a red sweater, and he said something to Karkat about breaking the rules and Karkat not talking to him or something, and then Karkat just decked him, and he went down and then Karkat kicked him, and then some teachers took him away and – “ 

“That’s enough,” Terezi declares, and you shut up immediately. She’s always been made up of sharp angles and harsh lines, but there had been this energy behind it, so she looked like the lines and angles were always moving, always trying to escape. Now that energy is gone, and she’s just frozen there, like a very pointy ice statue, and you don’t want to argue with her.

“Poor Karkat,” sighs Nepeta, as she wraps her arms around Terezi, who doesn’t relax at all. She’s so tense it hurts to look at her, so you glance at your friends instead. They don’t look like they agree with Nepeta’s statement, Jade clearly feels worse for the sweater man than for Karkat. 

You think back to Karkat’s _face_ , and his _eyes_ , and that _fear_ , and you think _Poor Karkat._

Terezi lets out a shuddering sigh and unlinks her arm from yours. She starts to trudge back to the cafeteria, her cane tapping in front of her, and you can’t stop yourself from calling out, “What now?” She stops, but doesn’t turn back to look at you. You rush on, “I just – Karkat looked so, _so_ upset, and is he really going to be okay? Should we really leave him alone, I’m just – I’m worried about him.” You can feel the stares of your friends, but your gaze doesn’t waver from Terezi. 

She still doesn’t turn to look at you. “Now, we go eat lunch.” 

“But –“ You don’t agree. You don’t want him to be alone. You don’t think anyone should be left alone with that fear you saw. 

“Karkat has been sent home. We will go visit him after school. For now, we eat. We go to class.” She starts to walk again, back towards the cafeteria. 

“Screw class!” You can’t help it. You’re agitated, you’re upset, and you need to know that Karkat is okay. He didn’t look okay. Terezi doesn’t know, she didn’t see, she can’t know how upset he was. She wouldn’t be this calm if she knew. 

Terezi whirls back to face you, and there is worry and anger etched on every line of her face. “You think it will help to skip class? You think rushing over there, forcing yourself into his space when you hardly know him, will help him calm down? You think us getting in trouble for skipping won’t weigh on him? You’re not the only one worried about him, _Egbert_.” She spits your name like a curse, and then hurries away, her cane tapping out an agitated rhythm in front of her. 

Nepeta sighs, and goes running after her, not sparing you a glance. You and your friends just stare, unmoving. 

After a moment, Rose comes to your side. “Did you get anything to eat?”

You blink, then shake your head, still staring after Terezi. “No. I was – uh –“

Rose nods, which you feel more than see. “Perhaps lunch isn’t a bad idea. You don’t do well on an empty stomach.” She starts to lead you towards the cafeteria. 

“That guy,” Jade says suddenly. “The one Karkat beat up – aren’t you at all worried about him?”

You think about the man’s curled up body, and then you think about Karkat’s face again. “No,” you say, slowly. “No. You should’ve seen it, Jade, the way he looked. I’m more worried about that.” You meet Jade’s gaze, trying to convey how _shattered_ Karkat had looked. After a moment, she nods. 

You let Rose pull you towards the cafeteria, the four of you not saying anything more. 

 

You barely make it through class. You’re practically vibrating with worry, distress, excitement, _something_ , and you feel like you’re about to zoom out of your seat straight to Karkat’s side. Weirdly, this somehow makes you more attentive than you usually are in class, because note taking uses some of your endless energy and keeps you sitting in your chair. You don’t zone out like normal, either. 

But the moment that bell rings, you’re rushing out of the room, out of the building. You stop briefly in front of the school as you remember that you weren’t super paying attention last time you walked to Karkat’s place, and you’re not entirely sure you can find the apartment. You’re about to set off in your best guess of the direction, when Rose slides her hand into yours. You know it’s hers without even looking, because she and her mom get these supposedly super passive-aggressive “mommy-daughter mani-pedis” every week, and her hands are absurdly fucking soft. You turn to look at her, and you can see her worry in the set of her eyebrows. You try to relax slightly, because you don’t want Rose to worry. It almost works. 

“It’s this way, John,” she says, pointing to the left of where you were trying to go. You can’t help but smile.

“What would I do without you, Rose?” You squeeze her hand, suddenly so incredibly grateful that she’s here. 

“Get lost,” she smiles back, “every single day of your life.” She starts to guide you the right direction, and you swear you’ll pay attention this time. You’ve got to remember this route if Karkat is going to be your friend, after all. You know the way to all of your friends’ houses. And Karkat’s your friend now, whether he knows it or not. 

“Leaving without us?” Dave calls out from somewhere behind you. You turn to see him leading Terezi hurriedly down the stairs, clearly headed in the same direction you and Rose were. Nepeta and Jade follow behind, a little slower. 

“Darn, Rose, they caught us.”

“Yes, however shall we shake them now?” She smiles back at you, and you want to hug her.

“All very cute, but we’ve got a mission,” Terezi cuts in. Her face still looks kind of ice statue-y, and your worried energy comes back all in a rush. You nod, even though you know she can’t see it, and Dave and Terezi take the lead towards Karkat’s apartment. 

Dave turns his head towards you to say, “Dude. ‘Darn’? Seriously?” 

“Shut up, Dave.” You stick your tongue out at him as he snorts.

Nepeta and Jade chatter behind you for the whole trip, but no one else talks. You don’t want to walk, you want to run, you want to _be there already_ , and it feels like the only thing keeping you together is Rose’s hand in yours. 

No one had talked the other time you came here either. But then, everyone was too busy analyzing Dave’s relationship with Terezi. Now, despite the fact that he’s not actually present, Karkat takes the focus. 

You finally reach his building, and Terezi unlocks the front door again. The tension ramps up even more, if that were possible, and you all end up literally bounding up the stairs. You let go of Rose’s hand to take the steps two at a time, keeping pace with Dave and Terezi instead. You’re all practically running down the hallway to his door. 

The three of you burst through the front door, resulting in the door unfortunately crashing into the wall. You wince a bit at the sound, kind of expecting Karkat to pop out and yell at you about “not breaking his fucking wall, thanks, so good of you to be a halfway competent human being,” but there’s no movement from inside the apartment. 

Terezi extracts the key from the lock, and strides into the apartment. You and Dave follow quickly after her, although you have no idea how she’s going to know if Karkat’s in a room or not. You glance at the kitchen and living room as you pass them, but she doesn’t even turn her head. She heads straight back to the door that Karkat and that scarf guy had disappeared into the other day. She opens this door much more carefully, and steps into the room quietly. 

You can’t see much from the doorway, and you can’t help yourself from slinking in behind her. You need to see Karkat.

You glance briefly around the room before your gaze settles on the bed. Karkat is lying on it, his bag clearly thrown on the ground beside him. He’s lying stomach down, with his face buried in his arms, and the one hand you can see is curled so tightly into a fist you’re surprised his nails aren’t cutting his palms. Every part of his body screams of tension, and you are very suddenly reminded that you don’t really know this kid. You don’t know how to help him. He looks like he is about to fly into pieces, to explode, like you felt earlier only somehow _more_ , and you have no idea how to calm him. 

(You are also, somewhere in the back of your mind, reminded that Karkat is fucking ripped. There is some impressive muscle there, coiled and ready to strike.)

Luckily for you, Terezi does know Karkat. And she clearly knows his room incredibly well, because after briefly placing her hand on his head to confirm that he was, in fact, lying on his bed, she quickly makes her way over to a kind of beat up looking stereo system in the corner. It’s an older kind, one that still accepts CDs rather than being entirely MP3 based, and she runs her fingers over the spines of several CD cases in the bookshelf next to it. You realize that the cases all have braille on the edge, and you wonder if Karkat ordered those specially for her, and you worry even more about this strange, angry, weirdly caring kid. 

She selects one after a moment, and pops it into the system. She skips several songs, before finally settling.

==> [S]  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGYLmxjs3Xc

It’s … not what you expected. The music, you mean.

“ _She don’t even know exactly where she wants to go,_ ” Terezi sings, as she turns back to face the bed. “ _Is that a double negative oh never mind let’s go, to the next line, of the story._ ” She’s smiling, in this wry and twisted way and there’s something about the emotion on her face and the weirdness of the lyrics that _just doesn’t add up_. 

What the fuck?

“ _I met her at the Smoothie King, she said Seattle’s best,_ ” she sings, as she walks towards Karkat on the bed, who hasn’t untensed at all. This is her idea of helping him? “ _She may be right think I remember coffee on her breath._ ” She squeezes herself into the space left next to his head, perching precariously on the edge of the bed. “ _She smoked cigarettes, I chewed bubble gum,_ ” she stutters on the cigarettes, almost laughing out the word, but there’s pain her smile. 

What the fuck is going on here?

“ _I know I shouldn’t take it but I think I kind of like it, when she tells me that I’m dumb,_ ” she sings, as she runs her hands through Karkat’s wild hair now, soothingly, carding it this way and that. You’re reminded of the way Rose slid her hand into yours earlier. And yet, Karkat hasn’t relaxed at all. He hasn’t gotten tenser either, to be fair, but you’re pretty sure being tenser wasn’t really possible. “ _And this may sound pathetic but I think if we can make it, we’ll go on and on and on and on._ ”

And then, suddenly, Karkat is turning his body, wrapping his arms around her middle, burying his head in her stomach, and singing along. “ _Love songs suck and fairy tales aren’t true._ ” It’s a little muffled, but his voice carries the same weird emotion as hers, the emotion that so does not even remotely match the song. “ _And happy ending Hollywood is not for me and you._ ” He makes a sound that is somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and stops singing. 

Terezi carries on, still running her hands through his hair, smiling down at him in this sad, painful way. “ _So add it up and break it down, it’s not that hard to figure out. You’re crazy and I’m crazy about you._ ” As she sings the last part you can see the shuddering rise and fall of Karkat’s chest, and you wonder if he’s crying. He kind of looks like he’s crying. Karkat Vantas is crying.

You are not equipped to deal with this. You are so incredibly not equipped to deal with this. 

“ _Everyone around me says she brings her brother down. And mommy thinks she’s great but then again she’s not around,_ ” at that, Karkat lets out another laugh-sob-gasp noise, and it occurs to you that you have never seen his mother, and _what the fuck is happening right now_ , “ _to see her throw a fit, borderline conniption._ ” And then Karkat laughs, actually laughs, not a laugh-sob-gasp-whatever it was, not heartbreaking at all, not even bitter. 

And then he turns his face up to hers, so you can see the side of it now, see the tear tracks down his cheeks, and sings, “ _And all this only matters if we listen anyway. And she’s all I can think about so I must not be gay._ ” As he sings that, more tears fall from his eyes, and Karkat Vantas is actually crying in front of you, he’s smiling up at his friend as he cries right in front of you, a wry, twisted, but maybe not actually sad anymore smile. “ _I’m her lunatic and she’s my psychopath._ ”

And they’re grinning like idiots, the kind of big grins that actually hurt to hold for too long, and singing together. “ _I know I shouldn’t take it but I think I kind of like it, when she tells me that I’m dumb._ ” They both laugh at that, and you think back to the way that Terezi and Karkat have interacted before, and suddenly you think you maybe understand what is happening slightly better. “ _And this may sound pathetic but I think if we can make it,_ ” a few more tears spill out of Karkat’s eyes, “ _we’ll go on and on and on and on._ ” With all these romantic cues in the song, where clearly Karkat is one of the people and Terezi the other, you’d wonder if they were dating, if Terezi was just jerking Dave around, except for the fact that something about the way they’re looking at one another reminds you of Rose, of you and Rose, of that moment outside the school and all the others like it, and you don’t think that’s what it is. 

“ _Love songs suck and fairy tales aren’t true._ ” Karkat lifts his hand to cup Terezi’s cheek, still smiling, still crying, as he sings to her alone now. “ _And happy ending Hollywood is not for me and you._ ” You think maybe a tear sneaks its way down her cheek too there, but it’s mostly hidden by Karkat’s hand and her glasses. 

Karkat wraps his arms around her again, pulling her in for a hug, clinging to her so tight it must hurt. But she seems to be clinging back just as much, and you can even see her digging her fingernails into the back of Karkat’s sweatshirt, which actually looks mildly painful. “ _So add it up and break it down, it’s not that hard to figure out._ ” Her grip grows impossibly tighter, her nails dig in further, as she joins him for the last line of the chorus. “ _You’re crazy and I’m crazy about you._ ” 

They don’t let go of one another, don’t move from the hug so tight it makes your rips hurt and your arms ache just to watch, and they’re still singing this goddamn ridiculous song. “ _And we are the lucky ones we’ll get matching tee shirts airbrushed at the mall, hang out at the pretzel stand and make fun of people and laugh if someone falls._ ” Okay, you have to admit, that does sound eerily like something that Terezi and Karkat would do, and you maybe understand more now about why this is their weird bonding song than you did when it first started playing, but it’s still a _weird_ bonding song? This is the kind of song you listen to when you’re thirteen and dumb, right? “ _Watch everyone else hold hands and try so hard and maybe we’ll start to see,_ ” seriously, that sounds like a thirteen-year-old, “ _that you and me, we’re not so crazy._ ” And yet somehow, the amount of emotion in this room is overwhelming and all encompassing. 

They pull back from the hug to laugh at one another again, and then Karkat rests his head on Terezi’s shoulder, arms now loosely linked around her. She’s still teetering on the edge of the bed, but she doesn’t move over, just lets her hand find its way back into Karkat’s hair. The tension is gone, suddenly, replaced by this easy feeling in the air. It’s not quite happy, but it’s not sad, and you feel yourself relaxing with them, like the storm has passed and everyone has made it out okay. They’re not even really bothering to sing along anymore. 

You let out a sigh without thinking, and suddenly Karkat’s body tenses again. Shit, did he not know you were here? 

Karkat’s body looks like he’s about to turn around and explode at you, but then Terezi’s hand in his hair stops idly stroking and instead keeps his head firmly where it is. “ _So add it up and break it down, add it up and break it down, it’s not that hard to figure out._ ” Her other arm is rubbing his back now, easing the lines of tension there. Karkat slowly relaxes, but doesn’t quite manage to get to the chilled out stage he was in before he realized someone else was witnessing his private moment of weakness. “ _You’re crazy and I’m crazy about you._ ” She sings softly now, hardly audible over the CD itself. Karkat doesn’t join her again, doesn’t move, doesn’t relax any more, but his breath is steady and calm and his hands aren’t clenched into fists, so you’re still counting it as a victory. 

She finishes out the song in the same quiet voice, one hand in his hair, one gently stroking his back, before carefully disentangling herself to turn off the stereo system. Karkat sits on the edge of the bed facing Terezi, his back still to you, and he doesn’t move. 

Terezi returns the CD to its case and slides it back onto the bookshelf. She stares sightlessly at it for a moment, before turning around and declaring, “I’m starving.” She strides over to the edge of Karkat’s bed. “Go make me some food,” she demands. Karkat lets out a noise somewhere between a snort and a snarl, a noise that sounds like an argument, but she flounces out of the room before he can get anything else out. “Come feed me or I’ll destroy your kitchen trying to feed myself.” 

Karkat throws his arms up in the air like he’s going to argue with her from here, before sighing and hauling himself up off the bed. He turns toward the door, his eyes widening slightly when he sees you, before flickering briefly to your left. You wonder for a moment if he’s going to hit you or something, but then he gets that “fucking try me, asshole” look on his face, the same look he’d had when he’d winked at you, and then he strides out of the room. “Terezi if you touch fucking anything, you’re buying me a new one!” 

You watch him go, and you realize that Dave was in the room the whole time too. You look at him and he looks at you, and neither of you seems to really understand what you just witnessed. 

Then you shrug, and follow Karkat out. You’ve got an operation to complete, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha it's been ages since I updated. It'll probably be ages till I update again. Sorry guys, I'm the worst.

**Author's Note:**

> What what is is this. What even is this. Wat.


End file.
